I think your second proposal is more feasible than your first one.
They're both very solid philosophies, but we can only choose one, and that's likely to be our communities Achilles Heel.
The first one is actually optimal given our current track record, that being that once we have a community-established and accepted set of values, the community will defend it. (See: The community defends chaingrabs even when contradictory to depth//balance//whatever, for no apparent or logical reason.)
There would likely be manipulation in this, getting the community to like what is best for them is not an easy to do thing.
The second option, while better then what we did this time, is simply a worse version of the first one, where we create our standards as the game goes instead of starting out with them. It's what the URC tried to do, in part. As far as I remember the community did NOT like it.
Honestly, I'd be surprised if Smash 4 has anything with a measurable level of competitive depth. The best course of action would probably be to not touch the game for at least 6 months. Then you remove the really bogus stuff, and just leave the game alone. Otherwise I can see it ending up with worse versions of ledge grab limits and lolMK bans.
You have no idea the way Nintendo thinks nor their philosophy or outlook on the current iteration of smash 4.
I would also go as far to say there's quite a high chance you have no idea how many iterations a game goes through and how drastically a game can change close to release.
The above quote is nothing but speculation, and bad at that.
Not really, when the logical conclusion from the data presented is obvious.
Was going to post the above in response.