In spite of not trying Brawl+ yet, I'm really enjoying this podcast.
One thing that caught my attention in the S/L/Auto-L canceling discussion was how S-canceling opened up more options, but still limited your approach. That's something I hadn't thought of before. However, there's two big concerns I'd could see myself having with the option:
1. Several air moves in Brawl, as in Melee, are fundamentally risk-reward. More powerful air moves (such as Link's down-A) tend to have longer landing lag. Since S-canceling removes all landing lag, wouldn't that eliminate much of the risk of some areals?
I can't help but think back to Melee, where an L-canceled Link down-A still took much longer to recover from than, say, an L-canceled sex kick. I'm not so sure that removing that dynamic altogether with S-Canceling would improve the balance.
2. Once landing on the ground, you're able to grab as soon as you have your shield up with S-canceling (if I'm understanding it right). Sounds nice ... but what if your opponent tried to counter your areal with a shield-grab? I'd imagine there's only a small window of opportunity - they'd have to shield your attack and initiate the grab before you hit the ground.
I'm afraid of granting the offensive player in this situation too much flexibility. Spacing your air attacks to avoid shield-grabs is one thing. But a poorly approached areal against a shielding opponent shouldn't put them both on equal standings. There needs to be room to capitalize on mistakes.
Maybe this would only be a problem with heavier gravity/quicker fastfalls, etc. If it's problematic now, maybe that's something added(/lessened?) shield-stun could fix.
Like I said, I haven't tried Brawl+ yet, so I honestly don't have much insight here. Anyone who has fiddled around with Brawl+ care to comment on these two concerns?