JFox chimed in with an "It's too early to tell," without any support for that claim, and idk if I explained myself well enough for him to think that it's an okay response or not, he hasn't said anything back.
Disclaimer: This post is long. Don't bother with your tl;dr comments. Furthermore, it has absolutely no proof that brawl has any competitive components whatsoever. All it is arguing is that its simply too early to tell.
Here is why I feel its too early to predict brawl's competitive activity:
When smash went from 64 to melee, there were many things that transfered over that helped the competitive 64 player to have an edge over the non-competitive 64 player when they both started playing melee.
Z-cancelling was still in. (renamed as L cancelling, the L simply standing for lag.)
Dashdancing was still in.
Shieldgrabbing was still in.
Chaingrabbing was still in. (yes, CG was in 64 too)
And most importantly, the game was still majorly based around an aerial mindset. Playing aerially rather than simply roll smashing around made the biggest difference between the common and the advanced players.
So there are some techniques which gave the 64 veterans an automatic advantage right off the bat. Now when the game went from melee to brawl, everyone is still trying to play it as if it were still like the previous games.
But lets look at what brawl lacks:
Wavedashing. L-cancelling. Dashdancing (for our purposes), chaingrabbing (with the exception of DDD) AND most importantly it doesn't seem to center around an aerial style like the previous games had. Those plus the lack of wavedashing and the emphasis on grab game made a big difference. (think about how powerful the grab really is in melee)
What are we left with? Shieldgrabbing. Shieldgrabbing is the ONLY technique that transfered from melee to Brawl. This is why all people are doing is spamming the shieldgrab. Its the only technique we have left.
What does this mean? This means that brawl players must now reinvent the meta-game style. This takes time. So rather than looking at early melee matches, we actually must go back as far as early smash 64 matches and compare those early players to todays brawl players. Really they are the only players that were in the same position as brawl players are. They, like we must now, had to invent a style which could be used to beat the average player, putting themselves ahead of the game.
You are making the mistake thinking that because 64/melee meta-game hasn't transfered over to brawl that it CANNOT be competitive. But already people are coming up with meta-game that is only do-able in brawl. Its just that the meta-game is in such early stages that they are negligible.
But like any new meta-game, things seem worthless when they are first invented. Look at how long it took for people to accept wavedashing as a useful technique(look at ken or masashi).
You are looking at these techniques as negligible because they haven't changed the tournament world (which they never do at first), and than saying that there is no meta-game, and therefore brawl will not be competitive, when in fact there is meta-game, its just no where near developed.
This is why I am saying give it some time. I'm sure smash 64 wasn't competitive in 3 weeks.
