Anecdotes are a fallacy during debates because of confirmation bias, if everyone thought nothing of their tier lists they wouldn't be so popular and they would have stopped making them long ago. The data is completely sound.
Personal experience from a decade's worth of fighting games is better than just pulling data from my ass and saying "this is how it is" with nothing to back it up. Look on any subreddit or forum for any fighting game community and say that eventhubs tier lists are valuable right now and I'll guarantee you'll be laughed at.
You see the data isn't meant to be an accurate indicator of character strength like a tier list.
It's a popularity contest that shifts with the voter tendencies and its own recency bias. There's a reason why community voted tier lists aren't exactly ever accurate, valued, or ever given any sort of serious consideration.
It's about on the same level or worse than a community reddit, Smashboards, or gamefaqs tier list.