@TheOneJanitor: LOL @ mindgames in Brawl.
Melee is much better 
Well I know that in melee people really worked hard are finding tricks and advantaged to improve their battles; I remember at the local LAN I would hang out at we had Daily Fight night’s with Melee and it went from your basic fast style play to Spamus (lol) reaching half way across the map with the tracking grab… I mean it started becoming really competitive then with brawl the drive slowed down and not by little but Smash turned into more of a laid back fighting game.
I also remember a few tournaments at the college’s when they had there anime-cons melee was the large fighting game and Naruto being the 2nd largest; but now SSFIV has taken over those events as well.
Now what I also think is that the machanics of both games are very identical and for the most part Brawl is Melee with added characters, now this is my opinion and that might also be a reason, not to mention all the new fighting games that really has spawned new players into the FGC
melee>brawl just had to say it (for the 999999999999999th time)
Marvel 3.
Definitely Melee. Newer ones are becoming more user friendly, less competitive. I’m with you on the tripping and final smashes, they mix things up for casual play but tripping is a headache for competitive matches.