If you personally feel like Melee is your cup of tea, then go for it. I can see why you don't like projectiles, but it's a thing that you must learn to counter no matter which title you flock to, even if you decide to play Smash 64. Melee might have weaker projectiles overall, but it is still something you must learn to counter and maneuver especially if you play against characters like Falco with his short hop lasers, or other characters like Young Link and regular Link.
I'd say that Ultimate is the most balanced smash title out of all because no character completely dominates the game nor does any character represent the face of the game like Fox for Melee for example. Like every fighting game out there, they all have characters that are considered high tiers, but Ultimate's high tier characters still have weaknesses that keep them from being overwhelmingly dominant. I personally feel like there are a few characters that are still sort of bad like Little Mac for example, but far from saying that any character is unusable. Even if you use a character that is regarded as low tier, you still have a decent shot to be able to deal with the high tier characters, and even characters that are considered your worst matchups (-3).
Melee has a select handful of characters that are considered viable for top level play, and viable in the sense that they are able to reach from Top 8, to winning a major. Low tier characters such as Bowser and Zelda for example are considered to be unusable at high level play because they have few to no options to deal with the high tier characters. All of the high tier characters in Melee have extremely good options that grant them advantages against the rest of the cast, especially against mid-tier and low-tier characters. Characters that tend to have slower movement and terrible options to deal with the options that high tier characters have struggle the hardest, especially in top level play.
Again, if you feel like Melee is your cup of tea, then stick with that if that's what you prefer. No issue with that, but as long as you respect others who prefer different titles then it should be fine. I prefer both titles since they each have unique traits and things to bring to the table, but Melee is far from being a balanced game compared to Ultimate. I wouldn't say that Ultimate is 100% perfectly balanced, but it's still the most balanced smash title we have.