On one hand, I'm inclined to agree with you. On the other, I got really sick and tired of the same 5-15 characters being the only ones people ever talked about on the general discussion thread. October pre-Grinch-Leak was especially insufferable.
I mean, the whole idea of Ultimate was based around fan demand and after the August Direct Sakurai had basically narrowed it down extremely with the reveals. We mostly talked about those characters because those were what we had left.
We’re at a point with Smash when on a first party level, most of the main all stars are in, and a few bigger characters remain from the Nintendo camp. A handful of notable franchises are still missing any significant representation, and a handful of breakout stars in the past few years are also missing. And those are generally going to be the most popular picks at the end of the day, and you’re not getting rid of those fan bases until they get in. There will always be characters people gravitate towards, and unfortunately for you at least, most of what has been highly requested this time around and isn’t currently in will stick around. I know that’s not super wonderful to hear, but I think it’s jusy a new reality of Smash at this point...
It’s kind of always been funny to me that the easiest way to get those crowds to stop talking is just to have there character in the game. If people (and this isn’t really directed at you mind) do hate hearing about certain characters sooo much, then supporting them is actually in their interest. Especially now when we’ve confirmed fan bases can get a character in with a loud enough voice haha.
On another note not responding to you:
Beyond that, I’ve mentioned it before, but complaining about how certain characters belong to a “bandwagon” is kind of useless I feel. Is it so unreasonable to consider that an active and vocal fan base demonstrated reasons to like a character, and people responded positively to that? That people went, “oh yeah, that’d be a cool character” once it’s been explained or shown to them? Or that maybe people who have always liked the character are empowered a little bit to support that character when they an active community?
Like the whole anti-bandwagon character ideology utterly relies on you assuming that people joining the bandwagon have no agency to make their own decisions and might actually have legitimate support for that character or this one. Just let people like what they like and stop criticizing characters because they have support...
I don’t know, the bandwagon idea alongside the likes of “literal who”, relevancy, and the lulz Sakurai likes to troll reasoning rank among the most frustrating arguments I’ve heard in this community so I always get a little flustered hearing it I suppose.