I apologize for my scattered thought process, I have a bit of cold making it difficult to layout my opinions unsegmented due to medication slightly clouding my mind. Regardless, here are some of my initial thoughts:
Man, fighting a competent Snake is practically impossible with Ridley without camping the edge (but that was not unexpected, I suppose). Speaking of which, I'm really not fond of the movement options the up special has while hanging off the ledge, it is reminiscent of the 'woop woop' stall of 3.02 Mewtwo, with trickier motion. Granted, you lose ledge invincibility after 5 grabs now, but it is still a regrettable feature in my opinion.
Trying this mod out with friends this morning has led to a bit controversy over the pogo tail down air. My more skilled friends admittedly found it mildly annoying - but avoidable - except when used after a grounded side special leading to an early off stage death, although that may just happen anyway due to how strong the side special is, but the causal Smash players couldn't escape out of it (and loved spamming it along with the aerial down special). It seems the amount of recoil given to a successful or blocked hit makes it overly useful; maybe reducing the gained elevation afterwards would prevent further set-ups for the attack? Also, the ability to attack so effectively through platforms and even the stage itself (especially near edges) is a bit much.
I'm also in congruence with BLACKSasquatch; reducing aerial mobility just a bit might be something to experiment upon. Currently Ridley can move about very much like Puff, easily gimping characters like Fox, Falco, Bowser, Falcon, Ness, Ganon, Olimar... basically anyone with poor/tether only recoveries once off-stage.
In terms of aesthetics, I've noticed Ridley's shadow is a generic circular blob. Is that planned to change eventually? On a similar note of presentation, the down taunt scream is just too loud. I've seen your posts justifying it in other threads, and I understand your reasoning, but it just doesn't work. It seems out of place and demonstrates poor sound design when compared to the rest of the P:M environment. This is also a very minor issue, but when teetering over an edge, Ridley's animation looks a bit rushed. Maybe add a few frames to slow it down and add a bit of a flow to an otherwise abrupt looping point?
Anyway, despite my complaints (others have voiced much of what I would said myself, and you seem to be working on multiple fixes as we speak) I do have a positive outlook on the character for future patches. With that in mind, I know you mentioned releasing the desaturated textures sometime today - does that include the despiked model as well or is that not ready for release as of yet?