Sakurai supposedly doesn't want Brawl to be a competitive game that would leave people to practice and practice, only to find themselves far under the best person on an online ranking system. Of course, that can be organized manually--a series of tournaments could theoretically* determine the best Brawler on this board. And heck yes it's going to be competitive and not a "party game." You can be good at it. You can be bad at it. You can practice and become better at it and overcome rivals. He tried (tripping? WTD), but it's still no Mario Party. And that's a good thing.
Of course I don't support the whole mentality of competitiveness, nor constant competitiveness. Winning feels good, but being a troll about it is stupid. Losing isn't fantastic, but being sore about it is stupid. And playing on Final Destination without items is okay for tournaments, but playing that way all the time among friends is stupid. It's still a game, and it's meant to be fun. Items and wacky stages were put in to make the game more fun and shouldn't be ignored.
*Don't forget that I have lag and wouldn't be able to participate... well I'm sure I'd lose to MEGAߥTE if he's as good as I hear, and I probably wouldn't have beaten Lizard Dude quite as easily as I did if not for lag... Tomorrow I may get to play against some people (on CaptainJim's Wii), so maybe I'll save some replays onto it.