When comparing Smash to other traditional fighters, one of the things that bugs me about it is the sheer level of commitment that dashing is in Smash. In Smash when you dash you suffer a massive startup, lose the ability to any attacks besides a special dash attack (which usually sucks) and overall just lose a lot of ability to do anything. In most fighters, dashing is just faster walking: it's near instance, you can do every attack like normal, and can cancel it at any time.
I'm pretty half the reason wavedashing is so important to high-level Smash play is because it's the only way to retain full access to your moveset while moving. If dashes worked like traditional fighters (near-instant startup, you can use all your moves while dashing like when you're standing, no dash attacks), I'm certain wavedashing would be near borderline-useless in most situations.
I could be wrong, but if I were to design a platform fighter I wouldn't use Smash's dashing system, it's just way too clunky. I'd probably keep wavedashing in anyway, but it would have a situational use at best.