Ok so hold on here, I kinda typed a lot but bear with me because I've played lots with my friends and I think I have some opinions to weigh in on.
You claim to have to created an open and honest thread, yet you deny others when they Ness is the best, or that Link is the best? Are they not also characters we can discuss? SheerMadness posted in a very respectful way about Ness and Link being the best in his opinion, and I think you need to respect what he says. It is the general consensus of good players in this forum that Ness and Link are top 2 (I main Link because I just feel he wins really easily against some characters like Kirby, and he has probably the best matchup against Ness and Yoshi (underrated much???), some of the other top characters). Some argue that you really need to know how to use Ness before his full potential is revealed, but I think that we have to consider full potential and nothing less when discussing characters.
Pikachu is ok but some of his moves are really bad, like his Upwards-Aerial, it doesn't do very much damage and it doesn't cause strong knockback like his Down-Aerial and Down-Smash (which I think is his most underrated move, everyone talks about Side-Smash but people sometimes forget something very basic about Down-Smash, IT HITS DOWNWARDS which I think is really strong in edgeguarding). All in all he is a solid mid-high tier character, especially in free-for-alls where his mobility with Upwards-B is unlimited and he can easily hit multiple people with both Thunderbolt and Side-Smash.
Captain Falcon is ok and I have a friend who uses him really really well, like one time he got me from 8% to 79% and off the edge and I couldn't do anything, but his signature moves Falcon Punch and Falcon Jumping Grab are really hard to land - the huge damage is really good and maybe in the hands of a robotic player with perfect reflexes and mindgames you would be able to take advantage of that crazy 25% you get from one hit, but in my extensive testing with friends I just don't see much use out of the B button except for Down-B AKA Falcon Kick, which is so fast and everyone forgets about it.
I don't like Fox, even if other people say he is really strong I think that he has a really hard time getting actual kills. When you just discuss Fox you talk about him just shooting lots of lasers and using Down-Aerial to stop anyone who runs at him. I think Sakurai balanced him really well, the combination of long-ranged power with his Laser, strong middle range game with Firing Fox (you have to predict sometimes but I think this is a really good move, the CPU sometimes suicides with it but I find that if you space it right it's a really good damaging attack), and good close-range game with his Down-Aerial and more importantly, his normal A-button jab attack, which is actually really good and follows Fox's theme of lots and lots of weak hits for good damage. In the end though I think that he is really hurt by the lack of a finishing move, his Firing Fox charge just isn't strong enough sometimes and his Side-Smash, the only one of his smash attacks with good ranged ability, just doesn't kill opponents early enough on Hyrule (where you go because his Lasers are really strong there).
SO yeah I think that the top two are Link and Ness for sure, then Yoshi and Mario (I think Yoshi might be a bit better). We should talk more about whether Yoshi or Mario is actually better.