Then you would understand the game is far less balanced in Melee if you truly have. In Melee, you practically have to use characters that are mid-high (and mid is even pushing it at times) to actually compete. In Brawl, you can use BOTTOM tier, and still place well. Again, I use Zelda. According to how tier rankings are, I shouldn't be able to place well, yet I consistently have. I may struggle a bit more because of some disadvantages, but I still can take most people just fine who use, say, Snake, or Marth.
If you fight anyone in Melee with a bottom tier character, and they're using high tier, you're screwed. End of story. There's only a few people who have expertised with low tier and done well in tourneys, but that's also because no one knows how to fight said characters at times.
EDIT: Clarified a bit more.
This has to be the most biased comment i have seen in this thread. Brawl??? Balanced??? Wat??? You dare to call a game where there is a Character without a single bad matchup balanced??? Dont make me laugh.
There's definitely bad match-ups. Example: Zelda vs G&W. Horribly in G&W's favor. Same thing with ROB, IMO, but I haven't fought many ROBs, so that's possibly just me as well. I don't know about other characters, because I don't play them, but there is bad match-ups.
The ruleset in question (Unity 2.1) was generally ignored by the tournament scene and in fact led to the
disbanding of the committee which maintains said ruleset.
They tried to ban him and failed.
That I have not known then, so I have made an error there, in which I apologize for. I have not been active in the scene for the past few months. However, the top 8 isn't very clear on overall statistics, just the top 8 people who won and what they used. I know at least in my local tournaments that I've attended, when there's been Melee, the character selection span is less than what it is in Brawl. Not saying the Apex Top 8 results are invalid, just not entirely conclusive.