Ok, I've only read about 3 pages of this thread and I'm already fuming at how narrow-sighted some of the posters are. Here are some facts:
1. Tripping is one of the worst game mechanics ever implemented into a fighting game. (probably THE worst)
2. The game is slow, and there a very, very few ways to speed it up.
3. The game only seems balanced because it has only been out for 2 months.
4. There are VERY, VERY, VERY FEW combos (a common and borderline necessary staple to fighting games)
5. Leaving out tripping and adding L-cancelling, Wavedashing and some hit-stun would not have affected sales at all.
Tripping is awful. It's not fun, it doesn't add skill, it doesn't balance the game, it doesn't make it more competitive. It is annoying, frustrating, and makes me want to vomit. On very rare occasions it can be amusing, but I would trade those amusing times for a less stupid mechanic any day of the week.
L-cancelling added a level of skill to Melee that Brawl is quite simply missing out on. It didn't hurt the game, and it certainly didn't make it less fun. In my opinion, the most likely reason is that the developers of Brawl didn't want to take the time to balance the game with both L-cancelling AND hitstun added into the mix. So what did they do? The got rid of both. How hard is it to balance a game with neither L-cancelling or Hitsun???
Granted, there are 39 characters to be balancing, but as a consumer, am I wrong to ask for the effort of trying to balance a TECHNICAL game. Even if it didn't get balanced out that well, would that mean less people would buy it? No. Look at how many people bought Melee. I know for a fact that a large part of the melee competitive scene didn't give up playing it just because there were only 6ish really good characters.
I can understand wanting to get rid of Wavedashing. It took a level of control out of the developers hands. I would rather they had built the game around being able to do it, but of all the cuts, it's the one that hurts me the least. The problem I see ,however, is with the new airdodge system. It's ok on it's own, but if you put it in a game where you can pretty much use it to dodge any follow up attack (due to the lack of hit stun), and can use it multiple times before landing (adds so much skill to getting back on the ground [mashes R button]), and you've got something that's just plain ridiculous.
ATTENTION: We have little to no idea if Brawl is balanced or not. It's been out for 2 months people. Stop trying to claim that it is balanced. It's most likely not balanced at all. My own personal opinion is that Brawl will be more unbalanced than Melee, but that's only my own prediction. Remember, back when Melee first came out, everybody thought Link was really really good. Guess what, we were wrong. Wait for Brawl to grow a metagame before making ridiculous claims like "any character can win" or "it all depends on the skill of the player".
Sorry if anybody is offended at anything I said, but some people in this thread are just making me crazy.