It's always so easy to see who prefers which game on Smash Boards.
Take them as two separate games and everything becomes all happy and cheerful again. I mean, the Street Fighter crowd has no problem with SFII, SFII, and various others at the same time. Melee and Brawl both have their problems but their still very fun and can both be played just as competitively. After all, is Smash Bros. played competitively because it's a 'competitive game' or just because there is a strong community (let's face it, we're ALL Nintendo fanboys here) behind it? I've been thinking, why isn't Soul Calibur, Mortal Kombat, Power Rangers, Rockman: The Power Battles, or Worms played at a 'competitive' level as much as Smash Bros.? Most of those are techinically better fighting games.
Cutting out things that are "too good" is precisely what a designer should do. The Brawl team (let's not put everything on this Sakurai character - that's like blaming Bush for messing up all of America) most definitely took steps to balance out the game. Bowser is better, the shine isn't broken anymore, Marth's range has been toned down, thunder has been buffed, etc. However, just like EVERY SINGLE FIGHTING GAME IN EXISTENCE (with the possible exception of the upcoming Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe - my nipples get hard when I think about that game) at a competitive level it's not perfectly balanced. Crouch canceling didn't stop Marth so I don't see what effect it would have on Metaknight.
With the exception of tripping (which is the ONE thing I will admit has no place in any fighting game... although it IS pretty funny...), no addition/subtraction to Smash from Melee to Brawl has been a bad one. Tethers are better, grabbing the edge is much better, shielding is better, pivot grabbing is better, the roster is much better and with much less clones, the levels offer much more variety than most of Melee's battlefield-ish levels (although there are some great Melee levels that should have returned!), especially concerning counter-picks, and lastly, Marth's make-up is prettier.
In the end, I think that the hardcore Brawl-killed-Melee crew is just worried about one thing: replacement. SFIII didn't replace II, nor will IV replace III. They're all happily living together under one roof. Such is not the case (at least from what I'm seeing on these boards) with Smash. It seems like Brawl has superseded Melee and thus the Melee-exclusive players are (rightfully) upset. That's ok though; the Brawl players will feel that way November the 10th when a certain yellow ninja thows his spear into a certain tights wearing lunatic's throat.
EDIT: I'd just like to point out that, series-wise, both Smash AND Street Fighter get their collective butts outsold by a certain other, some might dare say superior, fighting game series. One so good it can take on Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman...