I have ANGST against people that get easily confused whenever somebody is talking about Toad (the important character) and Toads (the species). It comes up a lot in debates (at GameFAQs, since that is the only other forum that I visit) that Toad either isn't..
A) important enough to be a character, even though he's been around since the beginning.
B) Not unique enough, even though they decide to put a Yoshi, a Pikachu, a Jigglypuff, a Pichu, a Mewtwo..
C) He's never fought before in any game (which makes a ton of sense, since before the SSB series, most of these characters hadn't fought either *Captain Falcon*)
D) Is Peach's Shield! (quiet possibly the dumbest arguement, as they could easily replace the Retainer in question with another one, Perry, or just change the move all together, thus making Toad a candidate for playable character.
There are other reasons, but those 4 are the most numerous at GameFAQs. It just makes me want to tell these young kids that the SSB series is about classic characters battling it out. Classic characters. Most of us really don't want to see which form of Link from Majora's Mask could take on which latest Pokemon. We want to see which older characters (like Pit) could take on other older characters (like Toad).
Anyway, I do remember that Sakurai (sp?) had a list up some time ago (on his Japanese website), and that people who translated the page said that Toad was the 3rd character on the list, and Sakurai (sp?) found Toad's suggestion to be "interesting" (Not sure whether that meant he liked the suggestion, or was just tossing it aside..) [/ANGST]