Clearing this out.
I remember from a vid that Brawl was made to showcase the wii's realistic/cinematic quality. The same way Melee was made to showcase the responsive controls. I think it was from "Did You Know Gaming" that I heard that from, hopefully I said it right, after all I am paraphrasing here.
Also, with the whole fan is better than dev discussion. Well imagine this small paradox:
What if Brawl was artistically made smash 3ish already? And then we(the modders) come and make a mod/project that makes the texture,stages and bosses dull/realistic?
People will still hype over it because its a different type of eyecandy, something different and unique from an already well known and thoroughly discovered game. So in essence, good fan mods will always look better as long as people grow tired of how the game currently looks and yet is not willing to throw the game away because, well, they want more from it.
But, when the game has just been released... DEV is better than fan. And that is why, Im neutral in selecting a side.