Really? You're complaining about visual changes? I mean, I get where you're coming from, but I don't see it as integral. I didn't even know that the grappling hook and the hookshot looked different.
First off all - you never got back with that source. So no, it hasn't "already been decided to be the same as Brawl's".
And no, they don't have to decide how many characters to include. They have a general guideline. They can say "alright, we wanna have around 10 new characters", and end up with exactly 10 new characters, or they can end up with just 8, or they can end up with even 12.
I would think alone the fact that Brawl's initial development included up to 7 more characters that got axed during development for unknown reasons would be sufficient proof that there's no "slots". They're not gonna say "we need EXACTLY 36 characters in Brawl", they're gonna say "we'd like to have around 40 characters in Brawl".
To respond to the rest of your paragraph here: I didn't think of Wii Fit Trainer as an addition to the roster before the trailer, but after seeing her, she's a PERFECT fit. How doesn't she fit in? What exactly about her makes you think she doesn't "belong"?
I didn't say sales made people want her, I said that she wasn't a "no-name". Don't twist what I said. And it has
nothing to do with advertising, it has
nothing to do with including her so Wii Fit gains more popularity AT ALL. They don't need to advertise Wii Fit.
After the obvious choices of Mario, Link, etc. their logic behind character inclusion almost always is "Which character would be fun to play as?", and they thought Wii Fit Trainer was going to be a fun inclusion. Which she is. You can see they put a lot of detail and humor into her moves.
Also, your comparison to Call of Duty is really, REALLY stupid. Just saying. But, yes, I'd rather have Soap than a lot of the most requested Nintendo characters. He could at least have Snake's moveset if Snake got axed.
Of all the things you're naming DAISY? lol.
Okay, so you're calling Wii Fit Trainer a no-name mannequin, but Daisy is a "great rep"? What's she gonna "rep"? The Mario spin-offs? Throw soccer balls and swing a golf club like Peach does?
And yeah, of course. They're totally going to scrap Wii Fit Trainer because people on the internet don't like her. But you know what? If they're gonna scrap her,
no character will take her place.
So, what will you take, raging internet people? A game with X characters including Wii Fit Trainer, or a game with X-1 characters but without Wii Fit Trainer?
Is your hatred big enough to ask for a smaller roster?