Personally, even though the 16 players invited are some of if not the best and have trounced me several times, I am not too privy on their claims. In fact, a lot of the time, the game looked way better when played by the folks at Treehouse.
It is obvious Samus earns her meal almost entirely differently than she did in Melee. In Melee, if you got hit by a missile at mid to high percentages, you lost all stage control and if you got hit while recovering, you are DEAD. Good luck grabbing the ledge. Her crisp wavedash, missiles, and sex kick are all gone. Of her strengths, her weight, recovery and inability to suffer combos are all that remain.
That said, her ground game hasn't gotten any worse. OOS is worlds better now that both usmash and Screw Attack are worlds better. She can now consistently KO vertically... something that I would say I don't get often in Melee as someone who mains her.
Again, I would like to think that this is simply not the Samus that melee mains were looking for. They took a design direction that, while I don't agree with, is entirely valid.
Of course this is all speculation just like any other. Keep in mind that Samus could have received a lot of improvements internally in late April and during May, which may not have been illustrated on the demo or invitational build of the game. It is possible Sakurai merely didn't know the timeline in which improvements may have occurred. In game development, when you have hundreds of changes happening within the span of a month, it's hard to say when a change has happened without actively looking at documentation.
