You know, I really appreciate you clarifying and explaining those decisions that were made in the balance process. Sometimes, it feels like certain decisions are left completely unexplained, and I appreciate you taking the time to "fill us in."

While I understand your argument against using a positive difference between hitstun and selfstun regularly, I disagree with it. While it allows for "free" and "cookie cutter" combos out of certain moves in particular, it also allows for more combo freedom, as if most moves have this strength, more and more moves are combo options. In my opinion, a better policy would be to apply a higher hitstun than selfstun by default and equalize moves that end up being "free" combo setups, like Fox's shine, nair, and anything else that ends up being free.
Platform fighters like SSF2 will always have cookie cutter combos. For a lot of characters, it may be a throw, or a dair, or a jab, or a nair. Nonetheless, with more combo freedom, people are rewarded for more creative combos, which discourages them from using cookie cutter combos and encourages them to make their own combos.

Nonetheless, I understand your logic behind making this balancing decision, and I respect it, especially now that I understand the reasoning behind it.

I especially liked 9b because of how stupid the balance was. In beta, the characters that I used to find fun have completely lost their charm and are just boring messes.