I don't understand the mentality that people shouldn't feel like they lost? You did lose, but that doesn't mean you can't try to win. Smash is inherently a competitive game, you COMPETE with other players to win. When you create competition, people will try to win, when they try to win they'll try to get better, and use new ideas, strategies and techniques to try and get ahead of their opponent. Any game that has a definite winner, will entice people to seek to be better at the game. Even in Smash 4, you've created a game where there is such a thing as better players. No matter how hard he tries there WILL be a skill gap between new players and people who've played for a long time. If I tried to play Smash 4 at Apex this year, I will get wrecked. I haven't put time into the game. Even if we were playing on Flatzone with items, I'd still get wrecked. What matters more is creating a fun game that people enjoy. No child picking up a soccer ball is going to win the FIFA championship a month after they start, but they still play because it's fun.
I don't think introducing "random" elements makes it better? I get more salty at a bull**** blue shell on the last lap of mario kart, then I do losing a fair match at any game.
He shouldn't worry so much about new players, I was a complete scrub when I played Melee, but I loved it regardless. Even if I was crap I wanted to get better at the game even if I lost. It's fun to lose, you have a chance to improve yourself.
Don't worry about new players, shiny things like new characters, stages and music entice them to play the game. Giving the game a deep, meaningful and exciting system that players can improve on, keeps them playing.
That being said I think there was a definite effort to try and balance Smash 4 to be more "competitive" than Brawl, its far, far to early in the metagame to really see if the changes they've made will make a difference. Regardless, Sakurai isn't the only person working on Smash, I'm sure there were some conflicing mentalities on ideas of "competitive-ness"