But Super Mario 64 is fairly generous with 1-Ups as it is, provides you with eight units of health, doesn't let up on coins or easy-to-kill enemies who drop them, and usually leave a 1-Up before tough challenges (like Bowser in the Sky). And by the time you've got 120 stars (or 150, my goodness) why do you need maxed out lives? Why dread the Game Over? Besides, all Games Over in SM64 ever really did was make you walk through the castle to your destination again and made you restart a Bowser level, if you were in one, and again, the only one that doesn't have a 1-Up very very close to the entrance to Bowser's arena is Fire Sea.
I don't see the loss in Yoshi going from giving you a hundred lives and a tricked-out triple jump to becoming playable. I mean, I suppose I'd take the tricked-out triple jump over Super Mario Slots... but not Trampoline Terror or Pair-A-Gone And On. Those be extreme. The super triple jump really only looks cool, anyway.