Do any of you guys actually play in Brawl competitively? it can be done even on line.
Brawl has more participation than Melee does at tournaments now'a days. But because they play very differently in some cases, lots of people don't want to drop melee cause they can still win "big" bucks.
In tournaments, no items, no smash balls. The main stages that can be used are Battle field, Final Destination, Yoshi's island, Smash Ville, and Lylate Cruise. Then there are counter picks which have a bit more in the way of randomness like Jungle Japes or Picto Chat, but levels like big blue, that awful porky stage and more are not included.
Tripping does make things somewhat random but I can assure that when the big boys play tripping is almost a nonfactor. Only time tripping plays a big role and happens often is with characters like Diddy, and Donkey Kong where tripping is a valuable part of their strategy and their moves causes the opponents propability of tripping to go up.
And though Metaknight and Snake are just too good for words, the roster as a whole is more balanced then melee. If you took just those 2 characters out, the game would be waaaay more balanced.