Why is it people keep thinking that character poll as the holy grail of determining popularity.
There are so many factors to take into while determining a character's popularity.
First off a character not appearing in games has a HUGE impact , Dhalsim has been in literally every SF and VS game. Karin is not the most popular Alpha character by any measure. If someone like Sakura,Cody,Guy,Rolento had never appeared in SSF4 and if we got Mika and Karin instead they would be topping the polls. Ditto for SF 3 and 'Q' being the most popular character.
Secondly the poll only consisted of roughly 60-70k votes? SF4 sold around 3 million. Just so you know how insignificant that number is. It is mostly the hardcore fans who play every single SF ever.
If you took a "Best games of all time" poll on GAF you would get titles like Zelda,Dark Souls,MGS, or FF7 or something.
Now do the same poll on millions of random gamers and youd probably end up with COD,Angry Birds and Minecraft.
Being a Guy player , I fking Hate Gief. And I dont really like Sim's playtstyle. But I understand and respect the variety and unique gameplay they bring to the roster and their iconic status.
That popularity poll was meant as a reference for Capcom , they have tons of info anyway on the rise and decline of character's popularity. Notice how almost all the SF 2 veterans are among the 'Popular" bunch? Ditto for Alpha. The exception being Birdie , which is why he got a huge change and is now a very popular character. I am expecting something similar with Sim.