I definitely think he is underrated. Especially considering Zero just rated him as 74th in the game just above Little Mac (what a joke). At first I was severely disappointed with the changes to his fair, however now that I am getting more accustomed to this new game I can see clearly that it has a ton of good uses, it still kills around the same percents that his old one did and it was really that I was just muscle trained to the physics of his old fair was why I hated it so much. It sucks that it doesn't have priority over anything at all, however imagine if it did. . . it would be completely broken. As it stands it is a good mix up tool and if they are blocking many people don't remember the second explosion of it and you can catch people off guard.
But honestly, this is the best he has ever been IMO. The changes to his neutral b, up b, and down b are incredible and they add an entire new dynamic to his play that was never there before.
In previous games using the bucket to absorb projectiles, even when you succeeded was almost always a guaranteed punish for the enemy because of how slow and laggy the move was. It now comes and goes very fast. It is SO much safer to use. The fact that it now reflects physical projectiles is absolutely insane and SO much more than I could have asked for. Match-ups that used to be nearly impossible have now become almost turned in his favor.
His neutral b, chef is now much less laggy and is SO useful as a spacing tool and as an edge-guard.
His up-b now has instant starting hit boxes and literally it is a broken move. It goes through everything. The way that he is played (IMO) is quite different than in previous Smash games, but I think that he is legitimately powerful and definitely slept on.
Considering that the current meta is all about sword characters and spaceys jumping around spamming air attacks, and that projectiles are considered very strong, G & W is in a very solid counter pick state. HIs new up -b counters people that jump around spamming air attacks, his new bucket counters all projectiles (it can straight up reflect Olimar Smash attacks!!) and his chef is so good at gimping in a game where air dodging is heavily nerfed.
Love me some G & W.