Yeah, you're right...
...if you're ignoring these two masterpieces! 
You can't tell me these two aren't significant for the series.
Dixie Kong would only be a clone of you made her one. Give her her own moveset and she'd be set.
And if Cranky can do platforming and beat up enemies in Tropical Freeze the way Donkey can then he can be a Smash fighter too. ^^
Didn't particularly like those, but...
I was using the dilapidated series explanation predominately to show how K Rool wouldn't fit anymore, since he doesn't appear in DKCR as the antagonist and is only given homage in Freeze. Dixie...You can argue that any character would be their own character if given the moveset. My rationale for saying she'd be a clone is her similarity to Diddy, and how it makes very little sense why she'd be different except for the up B being her hair swing. Since they've never appeared in a game where their movesets have been anything but nigh on identical, there's no reason to expect a separate moveset. Cranky Kong strikes me as more of a joke character, simply because outside of Freeze he's never been actively involved in combat and he's the most blatant "wise old man" character Nintendo has, including Toadsworth who does nothing but worry. Smash shies away from joke characters, so it makes sense that he wouldn't appear.
Concerning Wario:
Giving him 2 versions with each their own moveset is not cloning. It's the opposite.
Either way, I didn't "expect" them to do that. All I was saying is that it would've been a way to please both the fans of Wario's WarioWare moveset and those who have been wanting his signature moves from Wario Land back. They could've also done that with the custom moves but apparently that was too much effort for them.
To me Wario is just not Wario without his shoulder charge. In Brawl the move didn't work the way it did in the games but
at least it was in there. In Smash 4 they removed it entirely and replaced it with a random punch for no reason whatsoever. >_>
When Brawl came out Wario Land was about to be rebooted with Shake it (btw, I don't think that game was meh. It was pretty good, just not as excellent as Wario Land 4 for example)
so they could've done what they did with Pit and used Brawl as a promotion for his next game and his (sort-of) comeback. Maybe then it would've been more successful.
They already knew about Shake it since they used that game's first level theme as his victory tune.
Ok, accepting that they'd be two totally separate characters, imagine how confusing that would be for players. "There are two Warios? Which is which? How are they different? Which one am I fighting, and how do I react?" It would create needless confusion among those players who don't know Nintendo's history inside and out and know he wasn't always WarioWare, and that's the last thing you want in a game that's supposed to be fondly remembering the characters, or gaining interest in them.
His "Signature moves" in WarioLand aside from his charge were centered around his ability to transform into various things from taking damage. There's no way to do that in a game like Smash Bros without him being insanely overcomplicated. "Oh, I took damage from Robin's Nosferatu, I'm a vampire now". Not only would that be incredibly gimmicky and hard for both people playing as him and against him to deal with, it would require five times the work of a normal fighter to create. Remove that, and you wind up with a rather drab character.
Also, they didn't use Pit's appearance in Brawl to boost KI:U sales because that was years before the 3DS came out. Brawl came out in January 2008, the 3DS arrived in February 2011, and KI:U came out in March 2012. It's highly likely at the time KI:U wasn't even in development when Brawl came out…in fact, it could have been BECAUSE people were interested in Pit from Brawl that KI:U came to be. This is unlike Shake It!, which came out just 8 months after Brawl. We didn't see a new game featuring ROB come out, right? Therefore it strikes me that the cause-effect might be something different than you're thinking it is. ?
You don't get my point. Wario
Ware got plenty of representation. No issue there.
But Wario LAND got close to none.
Wait, lemme explain where I'm coming from....
Wario Land has had 5 well known games, all of which ranging from good to excellend. Even the lesser known one on the Virtual Boy was good! (its only flaw being the virtual boy itself. Heck, it was even the only good game on that system!)
Then, it had two spin-off platformers. One good and one not as good.
None of these games were outright bad or anything. All of them are unique, fun and high quality games.
And now 4 of them have been released on Virtual Console!
So it's not like they have fallen that far into obscurity.
But that's not the only reason I think the series should be represented.
Think about it:
Just like you said earlier, characters like Duck Hunt Duo, ROB, Ice Climbers and Mr. Game&Watch have all been added for their historical significance.
Well, without Wario Land Wario would've never become the break-out character that he is today. He would've never appeared in the sports, party and racing games as a reoccurring playable character, he would've never been used as a mascot for Wario Ware inc. and of course he wouldn't be a fighter in Smash today.
Instead he would've become just another forgotten one-note villain like Wart or Tatanga.
So in short:
If the "oldschool" characters deserve to be fighters for being significant to Nintendo's history then Wario Land deserves to be represented for being significant to Wario's history.
Do you see where I'm coming from here?
And I'm not the only one thinking that way.
All I'm asking for are some trophies and some songs and I'd be happy. (Seriously, the music is fantastic!
)
There's so much they could work with but as it is now it looks like they are trying to deny the series' existance.
Which is just sad.
Let's look over the facts here…what is Wario best known for in this day and age? Appearing in the Mario Party/sports games. After that? WarioWare. After that? Wario Land. Obviously they couldn't make a character off a sports game (the best they got out of that was our Waluigi Assist Trophy) so the next logical place to look was WarioWare, which is what they did.
I'd like to refute your claim that Virtual Console release implies that this means it deserves more press with the GBC Zeldas. All three of those are on the 3DS E-Shop, and in my mind are still the best handheld Zeldas ever. Does this mean that simply because they're still around that we should have Onox as a fighter? Veran as an assist trophy? A Nightmare battle stage? No. It's an old part of the series and isn't as iconic as more recent games,
regardless of how good they were at the time. Also, you're trying to lump Wario Land era Wario in with Duck Hunt, Ice Climbers, ROB, and Game and Watch? I don't follow this logic…Game and Watch represents their first real forage into the gaming industry…ROB literally saved the company from going under when NES sales didn't go as well as expected…Duck Hunt remains one of the most iconic NES games ever, excluding the main series that spawned from the console, and Ice Climbers follow the same line as Duck Hunt. Wario Land era Wario is nowhere NEAR as iconic as those. It'd be like throwing Wart in as a character…he was the main villain from a classic Mario game, so why not? Because there're far better choices to represent the franchise. ?
I agree that without the Wario Land series, Wario wouldn't be around today. However, your logic falls off when you say that classic Wario deserves to be a unique character because of this. Which is the most iconic Wario in today's gaming world, including the one of Brawl? I'm sorry, but it's WarioWare Wario…ask anyone who isn't a Wario Land fanboy to think of the first Wario-centric game they can…I bet you if you don't prompt them with Wario Land they'll tell you some form of WarioWare. Therefore, it makes sense that the version of him that would be represented is the WarioWare one. As I said before including both would be incredibly confusing for more casual gamers, especially if they weren't clones like you said they wouldn't be (instead of like Mario/Dr. Mario, which are clones). ?
Now, I will concede that some Wario Land trophies wouldn't be amiss, aside from the fact they'd look unusual sitting next to the WarioWare ones. That's a minor detail though. I don't believe they're trying to deny the series existed, but are rather capitalizing on the fact that the most well-known Wario is WarioWare Wario. This leads to the seemingly "left out" Wario Land.
