I am completely baffled that people actually liked Young Link compared to adult Link. Link's strengths were that he was next to unbeatable on the ground because of his range, varied attacks, and versatile special attacks. Sure, he weighs a metric fuckload and as such falls rather quickly, making him relatively easy to edge-camp, but Young Link didn't weigh anything. He had better air control, but could be knocked off extremely easily with relatively low percentage. Most of all, his fire arrows were ass compared to regular arrows and his up-B spin attack was god awful. Then you factor in his laughable range (seriously, Jigglypuff's attacks went further), and he was completely worthless. No one in my formerly large circle of Melee players liked Young Link compared to adult Link, partly because they all watched how much ass I kicked with adult Link and copied my good strategies.
At least Toon Link has an improved Up-smash (just one solid hit as compared to Link's fancy combo). His sword pogo air attack is pretty nice as it's quick and works more or less like Yoshi, Kirby, or Bowser's Down+B move. I still like regular Link's arrows a bit better as they are faster, but his has longer range for less time held down and reach quite a bit further. It makes you actually use his bombs to hit guys beneath you, at any rate. His air game is significantly changed and while he's not as heavy as Link, he can actually take a few hits before flying off.
I don't really get people saying Brawl was dummied down, either. They took out everything that was being exploited in "competitive gaming" from Melee. For my friends and I, it hasn't changed at all because anyone who wave-dashed or used any of the other fairly exploitable manuevers had to pay for the pizza and soda all on their own, and were banned from playing their best character all night.