The "Mario is better because he wears clothing" point is stupid because several characters in the Mario series don't wear clothing either. Yoshi, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Koopa Troopa, Goomba....the list goes on. I realize that he tried to rebuke that statement by saying that "not every character in the Mario series doesn't wear clothing," but it's still stupid because a lot of Sonic characters are animals and have fur. What, are we gonna start telling Kirby and Pikachu to start wearing cloths now? Bugs Bunny never wore cloths (well, sometimes he did, but in that case they were women's clothing). Does that make him uncool?
Another poor point made is the whole "I won't buy a Sonic game because my friends will laugh at me" thing. Yeah right, if they're really your friends, they wouldn't laugh at you for playing Sonic anyway. Besides, I had a friend who brought his PSP to school everyday with Sonic 3 downloaded. He'd have an entire circle around him captivated by the game, and he was friends with every one of them. Give me strength.
Sonic has attitude, but that's part of his character. It has and will continue to turn some people off to Sonic. I guess you're one of them. I personally couldn't care less about his attitude because the old games are fun, but then again, you haven't even tried them due to your own prejudice. Seriously dude, it's only holding you back from a fun experience. Trust me, the Sonic games are a blast and telling everyone that you won't play them because you dislike the main character is really ridiculous . That's like me coming out and saying "I won't play Metal Gear because I think Solid Snake is a jerk" before I even touch a controller.