I guess I need to put that into perspective. I didn't mean defensive/campy to the same extreme as brawl. There's still camping to some extent in melee, but it's a little different, at least the way I see it. In melee, camping is really just a way to pressure the other player to approach, so that you can react to their approach and punish it.
I feel like that's the best way to try to make link work. He has some combo tools. Obviously, these should be looked at and buffed appropriately. However, he doesn't really have good approach options. The only way I see to make him work in melee context without significant changes is to adopt a "bait and punish" kind of approach. You use your projectiles to control how players can approach, you had to predict/react to the approach appropriately, and (hopefully) get them up in the air where link's nair/bair/uair are awesome for combos.
To try to use specific examples, I'm kind of seeing pressuring the other player into a bad approach with projectiles, and either shieldgrabbing a shffled aerial or retreating fair to techchase. Once you get a grab, I think Uthrow/Dthrow should set up for combo potential, especially if Fair and Dash attack are buffed as followups.
I really don't know enough about how link plays in melee to provide much else, but from watching a few link mains play, this is one direction I think Link's game could go. It's sort of unique, and requires smart play, but I feel like that's a reasonable expectation considering he's got two good projectiles and disjointed hitboxes. You've got to use projectiles to force specific approaches and counter the approaches appropriately. Link already has the tools to force people to approach, so he just needs better tools to punish bad approaches.
Link getting combo'd and not having answers to shield pressure is a legitimate concern. I think giving him the tools to punish approaches is the best way to deal with combos; if he can predict, the link can avoid the combo and turn a profit on the failed approach. With regards to shield pressure, I think giving him reasonable OOS options is probably the best answer. To be fair, he has a few good options. I've seen UpB, nair, and grab out of shield all used reasonably well. Maybe Usmash could be sped up, so that you can Usmash OOS if someone misses a cancel or spaces poorly?
That's all I've got considering the lack of experience I have with melee link, but on the surface it seems reasonable to me, and wouldn't involve large changes to the moveset, just tweaking the speed/hitboxes.
