I think you're being far too defeatist about the game. By all means, I think Smash 4 feels a lot more on the defensive side, but that's only when melee becomes the natural comparison. Melee, WITH all of that 14 year old tech.
That kind of Melee has become almost synonymous with competitive smash for the last decade or so (I don't hate melee btw, but reliance on it's popularity is seriously screwing over smash 4).
Customs are a fantastic idea, and I am willing to let them play out until every Smasher is familiar with every combination through competitive play - there is literally no downside to seeing what it can do, and there are unbelievable downsides to ignoring them completely and playing the game with the prevalent mind-set that it can only be interesting if it's like melee.
This mind-set isn't explicitly intentional, but it's very visible.
Looking at the earlier matches, you can see so many players hopping on the ledge as if to edgehog, and spending the next few seconds awkwardly wondering what they are doing.
Most grab and kill combos for a lot of characters have not been developed because they don't feel reminiscent of Melee's combos. This is why Meta Knight, while significantly powerful in the competitive Brawl scene, is not hated by many players, as his play style and combos feel very, very nice to use, and are more similar to melee than perhaps any other character on the Brawl roster. Conversely, Diddy Kong has become the most quickly loathed character in the series for not only having an effective combo system that requires not much practice, but because it does not feel in any way similar to the incredibly technical follow-ups benefitted by Melees physics. It's the most blatant true combo in the game, and that's enough to make someone write a novella on why Diddy should be banned for 27 years.
This is primarily why Falco has been left in the dust by most players, even when it's pretty obvious to see that his move set was created through combining Falco's brawl moves with Wolf's moves. Thus, playing Falco like Brawl Wolf will grant more success than relying on a rather flaccid dair and a blaster obviously created for stalling airborne foes instead of damage racking and approaching.
This game is so very, very different from any game thus far in the series, and I'm not saying this solely for the gravitas, but because it features more customisation options than any other Smash title.
I don't blame you for stating your opinion, but I blame Leffen. Thanks for opening this discussion, the diverse opinions on the game need to be seen at the surface.
