So, wait a minute; are you satisfied with the amount of balance there is or not? I apologize for any offense but it sounds like SD Remix just makes the non top-tier characters marginally less likely to lose when you put it that way.
No offensive taken. I am quite happy with the current balance in v3.1. I wouldn't release it if I wasn't.
It is difficult to make blanket statements about game balance in general. I was merely demonstrating a point that some characters were poorly built. Even if you make them good, insanely good even, they are still poorly built. Kirby, despite being
very terrible in Melee, is actually a well-built character with the basic outline of a solid moveset (he was top in N64, after all). It was easy to transform him into a decent character in SD Remix.
Bowser, on the other hand, took a lot of work to balance. Note I said "balance" and not "make good." Hard hitters have a very asymmetrical effect on the game balance. A Ganondorf or Bowser that could be strong enough to fight Falco reliably, for instance, would also likely imbalance the game further because other match-ups become slighted. This is precisely how power creep happens, and is a very real concept in about every Smash mod in existence (not to mention in games in general).
To clarify, SD Remix Bowser is arguably as good if not better than vMelee Ganondorf. And yes, I am insinuating that vMelee Ganondorf is not good. I also would wager that the majority of the 'competitive' Melee community probably has a tough time against Ganondorf despite his tameness at the top echelons of play. Balancing the game for the very top is just as bad as balancing it for the bottom-of-the-barrel level players. You have to find some middle ground that accommodates everybody as best as possible (and
you still can't please everybody).
We could spend days upon days talking about balance. The important part of a game is whether or not it is fun. There are balanced games that are very boring, quite frankly. Likewise, there are poorly balanced games that many people enjoy. Melee, Marvel vs Capcom 2, etc. have widespread appeal. Enjoyment comes first, not last.
If you are going to make a Melee balance patch, it
must, without any compromises, maintain the spirit of Melee. If you nerf the top tiers, you for one, distort the base line ("so what are you guys balancing against?"), and you alienate a significant portion of the potential players of an already niche mod. Lastly, you are essentially removing what made Melee fun to competitive players to begin with. Games should be fun. If they're not, why on Earth are you playing them?