Well, the sad thing is that, yeah, he probably never will be an "icon" of video gaming. Meaning, he isn't recognizable by the general gaming public (and in some scenarios, the public in general) and most likely won't ever be.
Of course, an appearance in Brawl would definately help his case, but as of right now, he's not even close to being a gaming icon. You heard it straight from the long-time Geno fan's mouth.
Otherwise, he'll most likely go back to being buried under the pile of trash that is Generic Square (in more than one way *BAH-ZING!*) Sword Characters # 5,322 - # 19,019,845.