What an amazing Direct! It's truly pumped so much new life into Smash 4 in my eyes now that it's been confirmed that so many new things (including characters!!!) are in the works.
The best thing, though, is that Ridley is closer to being a playable character than ever – All of the gloating by Shokiio et al is way premature.
I think Ridley's Icon is the key to this:
Ridley's icon just fits in so well with all the others...it just seems to me that there no way that Sakurai didn't hear the enormous number of requests for playable Ridley.
I think this stage boss idea (with Rids fighting on your side) is a stopgap measure. Full player characters take a long time to develop, as the announcer in today's Direct said after revealing Mewtwo DLC.
So Sakurai didn't hear the Ridley excitement until he was too late in development to make him a playable character.
But Ridley's day will come (that icon is just too perfect, and too teasing to see next to the icons of all the other characters!).