- yeah he's not close to kirby or pika in the neutral, which is why he's not higher up the list. things get tough for him against the high tiers, but you yourself said that he can dominate the neutral vs the "worst characters." Being susceptible to gimps shouldn't automatically mean that he should be placed lower than the characters he can "dominate," if you're gonna put it that way.
- youre overgeneralizing the bit about his projectiles. I don't know exactly what you mean by him having to "be really precise with his projectiles," because that could mean a million things, though I'm guessing you mean the need to be precise to HIT (?). Hitting opponents with projectiles, especially Link's, is a small part of their overall function anyway. Most of the time, you should be trying to use them to cut options out from your opponent temporarily to aid you in the neutral, but even if we were speaking very generally, I personally still prefer Link's projectiles over Mario's. Yeah, Fox laser is orgasmic, but saying that Link's projectiles aren't as good as the best in the game isn't going to discount how amazing they are at a bunch of different things. They also provide a ridiculous amount of cover for edgeguarding several characters which nobody talks about, AND you can even use them to combo at limited instances
You didn't even mention his slow jump, which is imo a much worse characteristic to have than his grab. That sucks really badly against characters that can get up close really quickly like the high tiers, but just because it's not Hyrule doesn't mean that you can't keep your distance against the lower tiers.