This time "pre-brawl" Lucario would just be getting it's movie in Japan and would still be one of the only 4th gen Pokemon known at all. Hell, from what I remember people where mostly only talking about possible 3rd gen Pokemon because the 4th hadn't even come out by the time Brawl started development and all these misinformed people would assume that it would be too late.
NO. I am talking in the sense by the time Lucario's movie was two years old, he was the most requested Pokemon newcomer for Smash 4. Zoroark's movie is now closing in on two years, and I have seen far more antipathy toward Zoroark than Lucario.
And from what I gather from this very thread ... GameFreak has far more control than anyone thought (back when we were all talking about brawl) in how Pokemon are treated in Smash. Lucario didn't get in because of fan request, he got in because he was the Poster Boy for the 4th gen and GameFreak wanted certain mascots in the roster.
Which is why I have said Lucario is the most likely one to get the boot, if it is indeed the case where Sakurai does not determine all of Smash's Pokemon content.
By that logic it wouldn't matter how much people are now chatting it up about Zoroark ... as long as it's the top mascot in GameFreaks eyes it will be on the top of the list for that "non-first gen Pokemon" spot, leaving Lucario in the "if things go well then maybe he will be in" spot.
The problem is that you are simply assuming the Pokemon they will use to represent 5th-gen would be Zoroark. They have been promoting Victini just as much as Zoroark. Victini seems to be the favorite of the director for Pokemon Black/White btw.
And even that's moot seeing how there will likely be a new gen of Pokemon out before SSB4 and w/e that mascot is will have more priority than a 4th gen Pokemon.
I have talked about this too.
People said that there was no way TWO blue haired swordsmen from the vast selection of FE characters would be in Brawl.
That was simply a minority, mostly just the Lyn fanboys who thought a tutorial lord was more likely than a character with two games under his belt.
I'm not a big FE buff but ... is Ike important enough to the series or is in anyway as relevant to the series as he would need to be in order to out rank this new Chrome/ Krome guy when it comes to representing the latest games in the series?
Ike was basically the most important lord of the Tellius arc (FE9/FE10). Though the Tellius arc was the poorest selling Fire Emblem arc in Japan (FE6 actually sold more than both of those games combined).
Intelligent Systems seems to be turning Ike (a mercenary type lord) into a lord arch-type though. Just look at the official artwork for the My Unit in FE12 and notice the uncanny resemblance to Ike.
Chrome's outfit is also very similar to Ike's Radiant Dawn appearance too.
However, the major obstacle for removing Ike (even if Chrome does not end up as Ike 2.0) is how popular Ike is in Brawl. However, I am going to wait and see for FE13 is released so I can have a better assessment on Chrome.
Also ... I find it funny that you're defending Lucario when it's basically the Renamon/ Krystal for the Pokemon series. It was designed to attract the people who like anthropomorphic K9s/ animals which is why we now have Zoroark. They just went from trying to make cute Pikachu clones the mascot to trying to make cool furry-bait Pokemon the mascots
.
I am not a fan of Lucario, but Lucario definitely had more popularity when he was introduced than Zoroark. I am just against the idea of cutting characters in general. Personally, I would select for Victini as 5th-gen's representative, who seems to be a successor to Pichu in terms of personality. That way no characters would have to be cut, and there would be a 5th-generation representative as well.
Don't assume because I say arguments that defend a character that I am automatically a fan of them (for example, I am not a fan of FFVII, but I would admit that Cloud is probably the only other video game character besides Mega Man, that would create as much hype as Snake and Sonic did).
As for people not jumping on Zoroark I think that it's because the 5th gen Pokemon are by FAR better designed than the past few gens of Pokemon. 4th gen had a hand full of appealing designs ... but with the 5th gen I love most everything because they look so appealing.
This is an opinion, and even if there were polls done indicating it to be true, I still don't see much demand for a 5th-generation character. When the topic of a Pokemon newcomer for Smash 4 comes up, it is almost always Mewtwo.