My personal dislike of Brawl doesn’t factor into my suggestion of making it free play only, but the opinions and priorities of the people who enter it’s tournaments do. I’ve talked to our Brawl entrants often between matches, and I’ve found that at least 80% of them come to the LANs either for a different game or free play – Brawl is just a way to pass the time for them.
Yes, I do know that a small percentage of entrants play the game regularly. Ephraim does obvously; Matt F. plays Brawl with his group of friends every once in a while (Matt would play Melee more, but his group of friends are more about Gears 2 than anything else). There were two girls who showed up to the first LAN of last semester that came for Brawl specifically, but didn’t show up to the last LAN. You can throw in Angel and Devon too if you want, since they’re the ones who get the prizes.
But for most everyone else, it’s just for some good laughs. Zack, for example, just chooses Jigglypuff and uses Rollout the whole time. Kelly will just choose Kirby, because he looks cute. This is why I held Brawl with items enabled recently, since the majority interest in the game preffered to play for entertainment rather than competition. If Brawl was setup on a few Wiis as background free play for the event, the players that usually enter Brawl to pass time until their favored tournament, could instead drop by for a few pickup games. This sounds like a better option than waiting to be called, and possibly losing after one match, leaving them bored for a while.
But MOST importantly, I believe making Brawl free play would majorly alleviate the holdups we get when waiting for entrants to finish matches. I didn’t note this in my first post, but more people enter Brawl as a ‘secondary’ tournament than any other; Brawl gets connected to the wait times of FPSs, Fighters, and PC games, which makes it the one game that slows down the whole event the most.
EDIT: Even if you think I’m wrong about everything else, this last point is very valid. And I’d rather provide a smoother run, better overall event to everyone who comes than provide a bunch of conflicting tournaments just to make sure we get the largest attendance possible.