Nintendo's Fans Need to be Serviced

Playing through the Super Smash Bros. Brawl single player component, I realized that the whole game is nothing but fan service, with all the "game" bits cut out for the sake of more obscure refernces to Mother 3. 

This is absolute bullshit. Nintendo is a big, big company, and I can take new entrances into the Mario series (yes, even the football ones), the Legend of Zelda series, StarFox series *wink*. But I can't help but feel that sacrificing a cool gameplay element for the sake of nostalgia (which, in Nintendo's case, is merely self-referential jokes) is poor game development.

Nintendo couldn't have screwed up on a larger scale. I mean, can they spell "Fan Service" in any bigger, obvious letters? Well, I suppose they could give them a neon backlight.  With huge arrows pointing at them. And Mario dead.