I genuinely don't understand the Smash community's insistence that the next game needs to give basically every returning character a completely new moveset because their current one is "outdated." of course they could use a few touch ups, not completely redone from scratch 

Take Link. If the next Smash updates him with a couple of moves or mechanics from his newer games, great, because that's what they've been doing up to this point. But I don't think his entire gameplay needs to be rebuilt around whatever the newest Zelda game is. His general moveset has become *Link's Smash moveset*, and I think that's fine. 

Mario is an even better example. He isn't representing one specific game, nor the most recent one. Smash has established its own interpretation of how Mario fights. And honestly? I think Mario's moveset is basically perfect. Give him a few touch-ups if you want, but he doesn't need to suddenly have 15 new mechanics and references just because DLC characters are complicated. Mario is basically the Ryu/Scorpion of Smash. He's a straightforward, approachable character with a low skill floor. Also given this is a platform fighter, Mario's moveset perfectly reflects that. It's okay for some characters to be simpler than others. Not every character needs to have Steve levels of complexity. I really disagree with the idea that a moveset is automatically better because you added reference, reference, reference, reference, reference to it.

Sometimes I actually think the characters who are basically their source game's mechanics plopped into Smash are usually not fun to play at all. Smash is its own fighting game with its own identity. Fox and Captain Falcon are probably the biggest examples. Their Smash movesets are arguably almost as iconic as the characters themselves. Why would you throw that away just because the moveset is old?

"But the original 12 have had the same moves for 20+ years!"

Ryu and Kazuya have had their fundamental moves for 30+ years. Consistency is good for games like this.

I'm a Mortal Kombat fan, and MK completely reworking characters' movesets every game *is AWFUL*. You can spend a long time learning how a character works and then the next game comes out and suddenly half the things you knew are gone. Smash players seriously don't know what they're asking for when they say every character should be redesigned from the ground up. Smash has developed its own identity beyond "Nintendo characters are in the same game." That's exactly what Marvel vs Capcom was like, at least until Infinite. Sometimes focusing on relevance can eb a detriment. It's concerning to see how many smash fans are basically asking for a Marvel vs Capcom Infinite. 

Also, can we stop pretending the solution is to have a 20-character roster so everyone can get an entirely new moveset? I genuinely don't understand how someone can say they love Smash and then say they want the next game to have an insanely small roster because otherwise the developers won't have enough time to redesign everybody.

I want Smash to be a huge crossover fighting game. I don't want 20 characters with 20 insanely complicated movesets. Give returning characters updates. Give some characters bigger reworks where they're actually needed (Sonic cough cough). You can add new characters with crazy mechanics. But let Mario be Mario. Let Fox be Fox. Let Captain Falcon be Captain Falcon.

A moveset doesn't become outdated just because it's old. Sometimes it's old because it works.

Unpopular opinion: Smash 6 shouldn't completely rework the old move sets