Here is how to explain the sticky thing, as I've also done in the past in numerous places, most notably the vVv Directional Influence podcast.
Stickies are a Smashboards resource for the community. The question with the stickies are: what is best for the community. That is largely why Apex is stickied (plus its a Melee national which would deserve a sticky in its own right) because it would be a disservice to the community to otherwise not. When I say disservice, I don't mean "a small setback", I mean it would potentially cause problems with Apex (sponsors may wonder "why are you not stuck?") and it is a huge tournament, likely the biggest of the year. It is unique here.
What most of you are not seeing is why the sticky rules are good for the community. First, the overarching goal is to get tournaments to use the same ruleset. We are closer now to this goal than at any point ever in the history of the Smash community. If you want to know why this goal is good for the community then you can start to question the standards that exist in any community or game. Without a universal ruleset Smash has always been amateur hour. I'm still trying to get guys like MLG to consider picking up Smash again, but things like a universal ruleset need to be in place before it really even starts to become likely again.
Second: yes, it is a means to an end. It is a little harsh, but the reality is that it is meant to promote the community standard. You can pretend that Unity isn't standard, but I can point to countless weekends in the past few months (going back to May) where over half of the tournaments (and sometimes way more) are Unity events. Most weekends no other ruleset even repeats. It is not fair to players to have to travel to nationals and every national has a different rule, creating a home field advantage. It is terrible when people go to tournaments and don't have a clue what ruleset they are encountering. If you have actually been an active member of the Smash community for the last 3 years you have undoubtably been to a tournament and said "wait, that stage is on?", "wait, infinites are banned/allowed?", "wait, there is/is not SD rules". Again: amateur hour.
Creating a universal ruleset is a paradigm shift in the way the community operates. Will the sticky rule always exist? Probably not, it is a purpose for a transitionary period and as more and more TO's join together in the URC and work toward a single goal the purpose of the sticky rule will eventually not be needed.
Stickies are an incentive, not a right, and there have been many reasons tournaments have been stuck/not stuck in the past beyond simple thoughts like attendance. Charity events that had low attendance have been stuck. Tournaments that were suppose to be huge like GAMME were not stuck because the TO didn't look credible - yet based simply on interest it probably should have been. Some tournaments don't get stuck because there are too many tournaments already stuck or the tournaments at that point in time are pretty high quality (example, in the summer tournaments usually have more attendance, whereas in September/October they usually do not, so you would need less people in those months then you would in the summer if you were strictly going by attendance for stickies).
In summation (TL/DR):
-URC is meant to better the community in the long run
-Sticky's are a facilitator of adoption but not the single force
-The use of sticky's as a privilege with rules has always been in place
-The question really is weighing on a scale: On one hand the idea that stickies should be available to all regardless of what type/rules of tournament they run (people didn't want EVO2k8 stuck, btw) and the good that brings the community VS the goal of having everyone use the same ruleset and the good that brings the community.
