Alright then Equi/Afro, I seriously wanted to stay out of this thread, but I've gotten progressively dissatisfied by your posts (respect as Brawl players though, real talk), so I'd like to bring up a few points (some will probably be restated, oh wellz).
Unless you're a character at a higher percent, the main objective of any of the smash games is to force the opponent off of the stage and keep them off. This is facilitated by building percent quickly to get a kill or by edgeguarding.
The problem here is that both percent buildingand edgeguarding (and offense in general) are greatly discouraged for most of the cast of Brawl. Percent building is hindered by the obvious floatiness and new airdodge system, and edgeguarding is also worsened by auto-sweetspotted edges and, again, the overall floatiness of the characters. (NOTE: both still exist, but in less effective forms)
Due to reduced projectile colldown time, and massively reduced shieldstun and cooldown rates for spotdodges and rolls, the game engine itself was designed for camping and not moving/avoiding approaches. This defeats the inherent goal of smash: to hit the opponent off of the stage, usually by scoring a series of hits. True, by approaching after all of this heavy camping and delivering a fresh kill shot a stock is taken off, but this is simply a reason why the game is not only boring to watch but is a central concept in the arguement over the competitive worth of the game. If the game engine is fighting against the main purpose of the game, there will certainly be serious competitive issues.
Through the use of options in Melee (of which I'm sure you're aware), there were in fact many thought processes made as well (referring to your "thought links per hit" idea I guess). You had to know not only your own options, but all of your opponent's options, plus their movement/attack pattern. This goes along with what Scar (or it could've been Cactuar, I forget) posted in that thread wayyyy back then concerning the general push-pull motion of fighting games.
In 64, there was too much push, where a stock could very well come from a single hit. Compounding this issue was the tremendous shieldstun, which discouraged any defensive options and tilted the game farther towards a more, as someone in this thread delicately phrased it, "an aggro fest."
In Brawl, there is too much of the "pull" force here due to the overall defensiveness of the game. You net no gain for all of the extra effort applied to score a hit, which discourages aggression at all (as previously stated). You end up with characters dancing around in some form attemtping to score one or two hits, then returning to the dancing around phase again.
In Melee, there is certainly a healthy amount of "mindgames" to hit the opponent due to the multitudes of options available to the player, and there can be as great of a reward to the player for scoring a hit as their tech skill allows. Most of these combos, however, would not result in a KO. This type of situation favors offense, but not to the point where any person is without defensive options at any time.
There's also a character balance issue, but I'm not well-informed enough (nor do I pretend to be) to create a well-founded arguement there.
Oh yeah, the point of this post was not to prove you guys (Afro/Equi) wrong, but to give you a broader perspective on the Melee side of the discussion. Brawl has some positive points too, but I am also in favor of Melee in terms of competitiveness and enjoyability, so I guess I just want you guys to see where we (as Melee enthusiasts) are coming from.
