READ THIS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
Your post is a good example of that. You can know
that Barcelona is a good team, or know
that Dark Phoenix was pretty busted in MvC3, without really knowing
why.
But when you go to offer advice for changing things or balancing the playing field
you need to know why, and that requires a MUCH deeper understanding.
The solo Parasoul in that video did a lot of things wrong, and didn't use several of her tools well or capitalize off many situations in the best way that Parasoul can (or even a moderately good way).
To judge based on that video is, again, not knowing WHY or what could have been done better.
And again, good zoning is mostly *harder* than good rushdown.
To use your scale, that Parasoul had "about 4.5 points of skill", then - she was almost as good as the Peacock player, not better. But you don't know enough about the game to see that, so you think the Peacock side was easy and the Parasoul side was "more skilled" because you
don't know enough to know differently.
----
As far as who I care about when designing and balancing the game - the good players specifically. Period.
If the game is accessible enough for casual players (and judging by the number of this type of complaint it seems to be) then what designers really need to think about is "what happens when people are good".
So yes, casual players have money and are very vocal, and I'm sure other members of Lab Zero are very concerned about that...but if they offer an opinion that would ruin a matchup at higher levels, I will ignore said opinion all day and night.
And I will attempt to explain to them why their opinion is irrelevant, as I have been doing with you, and it will largely go unheard because they do not see past their own experiences, as has happened here.
(^.^)
If you think I'd make a design decision based on whether it would make more people knee-jerk react and buy the game, you must be confusing me with someone else.