Be honest my man, when you played Brawl back in the day, it was always just for a good time with friends, and not competitively, right? Trust me dude, nobody wants to play this game competitively still. How tf does chaingrabbing not irk you? You complain about no skill cheese all the time? I encourage you to check out this video that helps explain why, its pretty short. Watch it with an open mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSluwQoIfnE
Seen that video a long time ago. Felt the same way then, feel the same way now, lol. I like...("casual") regular smash more than competitive, i told you that before. Even in ultimate i find myself hosting more FFA lobbies(no items/hazards on) and , occasional team battles more than 1v1s. I 1v1 in too many other fighting games. I like smash for different reasons and, how different it is. i think brawl capitalised on it best; its gameplay is so (what youd call it) casual that, i believe it takes more skill to use those characters competitively. Ness, imo, is a lot harder to use in brawl (dedede, wolf, and, falcon too) and, i liked that. But ppl say that characters in ultimate are buffed when i just think the physics is easier to master. And, I never just play smash the same way; I cant play this like SF, Blazblue or, even DBFZ(basically) all the time; where its just 1v1 over and, over, especially with the immense freedom, gameplay, interactive stages and, co-op that smash has. Im competitive regardless in a FFA and/or 1v1 but, like i said, i like smash because its different from the traditional fighter.
Oh, and, tell me you didnt just equate the cheese of brawl compared to the 70+ character clusterf*** and BS of ultimate. Brawl had chain-grabbing, tripping and, ledge-hogging thats it(DACUS was sick). Thats not as bad as the **** in ultimate. The hitstun never bothered me either because, getting stuck in a combo in smash is a lot more dangerous than for example, tekken. Because in smash the combo ends with you launching off the stage(jigglypuff caries and, other **** like that too) atleast in other FGs you can break combos and/or have tools to counter the dmg youve taken like, faster meter fills, reversals, in smash only lucario has something like that. If you get combo'd in smash youre screwed. Two combos that deal up to 40%(maybe even 30%) can effect the knockback so much that , it could be detrimental to the victim. Who knows what cheese they could die to in ultimate. And, like i said, combo-carries where characters can finish you off from starting at 0% because the flow of their combo took you out-of-bounds.
And btw, theres also a melee is broken video but, people run from that one, lol.
Now i could be wrong about defending brawl over ultimate but, aye, opinions.