How about:
Aris won world SC2 in 2k4 (iirc) with Voldo
DTN came second with Nightmare
Mick and RTD just happened to be like the only two players who made it to the SC2 tournament at the last evo it was hosted.
And even then, Mick used Cassie for the better part of the tournament BECAUSE sophie sucked so much ass.
Other top notch players included:
Floe (Taki)
Semi (Astaroth)
Kage (Ivy)
TieTYT (NM)
It was pretty much undisputed in the sc community that the best character in the game was Cervantes (half life combos off counter hit 3B, 100% anti step 3A, + a bunch of other ridiculous tools). Followed by X (called 5 move X cause she was so cheap with 3A, 22B, throw, 3B and A,A,B).
After that Yoshi was considered top, and then the rest of the cast pretty much sharing mid tier status. Yunsung, Raphael and Maxi all near the bottom.
See SC2 was so much about step-G that it wasn’t even funny. good step+high damage launcher+hard to step moves = top tier.
That’s precisely why sophie was low tier. Her moves all had garbage tracking, so she was vulnerable to step-G. Her step was unimpressive (compared to say Ivy, who had the best step in the game) so she couldn’t abuse Step-G very well.
So despite tiering and actual characters used by top players, so much of the game is based on step-G abuse, reactionary blocking+punishing and basic yomi (high/low/throw mixups) that it didn’t really matter that much what character you picked at high level.
Seriously, I played Tharon Mortis a year or so ago and he beasted me all day all night with yunsung (until i pulled X and gave him some run for his money).
(It’s too old I don’t remember)