There's a real point in here. A less extreme example might make it more obvious.
How many matches have you guys (the people reading this) played on Flat Zone 2? Now, Flat Zone 2 is probably broken yeah, whatever. The point to consider is that it wasn't immediately obviously broken. The risk-reward on walk-offs doesn't play out in an obvious way, and the hazards are all clearly possible to handle. If the stage is broken (and yes, it probably is), it's not because of something you can conclude without playing on it. However, it never got a chance at all... The stage debate actually shows this well. Over many years, melee's stage list evolved to where it is today, and while I'm not sure it's clear they made 100% correct decisions, the process was mostly reasonable. The starting point is "allow everything" with stuff being removed as a consensus built that it was proving broken. In brawl, not many people played more than the first week on every stage; a lot of people either went to the radical extreme of playing only on stages like Final Destination until they got confirmation about other stages being fair (the OPPOSITE of the proper method) or just ruled out a very wide array of stages without really considering them. I confess; I personally ruled out Mushroomy Kingdom 1-2, Spear Pillar, WarioWare, New Pork City, 75m, Mario Bros., Shadow Moses Island, and Temple without giving them much time. I was actually unduly hasty personally with Skyworld in particular (not much less hasty than with the ones I quickly concluded "this stage is obviously broken"), and now I'm crippled in not having good enough stage knowledge on it to be as informed about how fair it is as I could be. However, I think I was one of the most liberal people in giving stages time; it's a bit terrifying how little of a shot people give some stages (by this point I do have dozens of matches on every stage at least...). Stages that are very solid like Distant Planet have been really victimized by this, and even with stages like Flat Zone 2 where we can probably safely say "this won't end up legal", the lack of a chance given to stages like that is basically placing the bar "too high" for what should probably be allowed which, in the long run, is very likely actually hurting the depth of the game.
With the items, it is definitely true that they aren't explored well, but I have actually played quite a few matches with smashballs on and no other items so they can be judged in a vacuum (not voluntarily). I feel confident enough to be able to report this... They really don't balance things out. The Star Fox characters seem pretty obviously completely broken with them on, and they generally treat the cast with a very uneven hand (however good you think Ness and Lucas are with final smashes rates them way too highly; Pk Starstorm is actually WORSE than useless). Items do have to be set one way or another, and given how the initial evidence suggests they're wildly unbalanced and they basically suck all the fun out of the game, I don't really feel bad just forgetting about them.
