Okay, look. I was gonna keep quiet, but I guess I'll have to throw my ginormous ego and weight into the ring too
Here's the major franchises, all already repped in 64/Melee:
Super Mario Bros./Yoshi
Donkey Kong
Legend of Zelda
Metroid
F-Zero
Mother
Pokemon
Star Fox
Fire Emblem
On top of that, Melee saw the addition of a few retro characters:
Ice Climber
Game and Watch
Now, first, before I get ahead of myself... Retro in this case, as far as Smash Bros. and Sakurai are concerned, refers to early NES/Arcade/Game and Watch era Nintendo. If you were to look at games like Excitebike, Ice Climber, Balloon Fight, etc., they were all arcade titles as well as launch games for the NES, all copyrighted 1984. Compare this to titles such as Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Nazo no Murasame, Punch-Out, etc., which range from 1985 to 1987 (for their first titles, anyways). The difference is this: the games that were released pre-Super Mario Bros. were one-shots. Simple, addictive, arcade style games. The ones post, and including, SMB were intended to be longer, drawn-out games, something that would be better suited for a console (not a quarter eater). In other words, stuff that was released in 1985 and on is much more fleshed out, and much greater franchise material. Essentially, it's not "retro."
Now that that's done away with... The "new" franchises being introduced in Brawl so far are as follows:
Kid Icarus
Wario Land/Ware
Now these are not by a longshot the total representation of ALL the possible series/franchises Nintendo has amassed over the years, nor all their retro possibilities. But if we were to take all those into consideration, that's a LOOOOT of characters. So Sakurai and his team obviously have limits. If we look at SSB64 and Melee, there's somewhat of a ratio between characters. The franchises obviously have more characters than the retros, who seem to be "one-shot" deals in of themselves; there are only two in Melee, and none in the original. As far as the franchises go, it would seem that the less frequent or popular franchises get fewer characters, or, rather, the more popular and established franchises carry the bulk. We saw this. Even in the original, Mario and Pokemon had the most fighters, and in Melee are joined by Fire Emblem, Star Fox, and Zelda.
Since Melee's release, there has been a span of FIVE years. People forget that Melee was, essentially, a launch for the Cube, meaning it ran entirely just off the N64 and BACK. So Brawl has to take into account: 1. The entire lifespan of the Cube; 2. Essentially the entire lifespan of the GBA; and 3. The beginning of the DS's lifespan. There's a LOT of ground to cover in those five years. The Marioverse has expanded considerably, we've seen 4 new Zelda titles (and two more will be released BEFORE Brawl), Pokemon will have progressed TWO generations before Brawl hits the shelves, Metroid has revived in full force as top franchise for the company, Star Fox has seen THREE games and a slew of new characters, Fire Emblem went international, Mother 3 actually released, F-Zero saw another massive title, Retro titles are suddenly hip again, etc. etc. etc.
That's a ton of stuff to take into consideration. Not to mention the NEW games that have released. Pikmin was pre-Melee, but only picked up after Melee, and gained a sequel. Drill Dozer, Meteos, Electroplankton, Nintendogs, Band Brothers, blah blah blah... Five years changed a lot of things for Nintendo.
Hell, the Wii! Brawl will be an early title for the Wii, but even by its release we will have a new main Mario title and a new Metroid Prime! Yoshi's Island 2, Star Fox Command, Wii Sports... geez. And then the Virtual Console! Nintendo actually has the rights to distribute Sega and Hudson games digitally through the console itself. That gives them access to hundreds of Genesis and TurboGrafx games, and a ton more potentiality for characters in a Smash game.
So what am I getting at, exactly? That this is a lot more daunting than we could ever imagine.
There's soooo much to consider. So expect it to take a while. Expect there to be stunning upsets. But also expect stunning surprises. Or just plain stuns. This will be the end all be all greatest game for the Wii at the time of its release, and potentially across all consoles. Sakurai has a LOT riding on his shoulders.
So if the roster is 40 characters, that's chicken scratch. That's nothing. And there's so much everything to include.
So I guess what it breaks down to, in the end, is this... As far as the roster goes, do you guys think Sakurai will settle for updating already repped franchises? Or do you think he will respect Nintendo's "new" history, and include new or nonrepped franchises, along with retro characters? There's a lot of easy and clever options along either path. Just picking the popular franchises to finish off the roster alone will do it. But so will going along with unheard of characters.
This... will be an incredible game. Just believe in that, and don't worry. They will make it wonderful.
But the trailer could be viewed as just a means of introducing Zamus, while at the same time showing that Varia Suit Samus is still there, intact. I personally would be very pissed if they went and made Zamus some magical "take this much damage!" or "use the Super Smash!" transformation of Samus, and I'm pretty sure Sakurai knows people would hate the idea. So I'm just hanging onto whatever I can to keep "Zamus is a separate fighter" alive 
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