@The Spiked Red One
My point about NSMB Wii was exactly the way Baby Luigi explained it to be. Toads are playable in this game, and this indeed is a big turning point for Toad and his species. Regardless of whether they are blue or yellow, they are still featureless Toads. I believe the developers of Nintendo purposely made two differently colored Toads in order to satisfy the four color wheel (red, green, blue, yellow - the colors are distinctive). It is just that Mario already occupies the red color (along with white looking at his fire power up colors and blue for his overalls). Regardless, they still made this decision when fans requested Toad as an option for being playable (the others were Peach, Wario, Waluigi), and ultimately we got two Toads for the price of one. What about the Red Toads/THE Toad? Nintendo also stuck them in the game as NPCs as it would make no sense to include only two minor colors of Toad without including the Red Toads. Note that these two palette swaps of Toad are generic looking Toads that have no distinct identity such as that of established characters like Toadette and Toadsworth. Toad usually represents all Toads in most of the spin-off games, so I don't see how this is much different (even Toad's trophies mentions both himself and his species). Even see the pic made by Club Nintendo in my sig. That pic depicts Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, and Toad himself after the release of NSMB Wii. Toad is the generalized image of the Toads as a whole (very much like how Yoshi does it for his species even though more than one Yoshi appears in this game).
Do you think Yoshi got in by his lonesome? No way, from what it seems. He got in due to the importance of his species from the Yoshi games. That is why THE Yoshi is in the smash games as the sole representative of the Yoshi species (though many other colors of the Yoshis from the Yoshi games exist as his alternate colorations). That is why Yoshi is referred to as a species so often in his trophies and why there are events involving the player fighting against teams of Yoshis. Heck, even Yoshi's final smash is inspired by the Blue Yoshis of Super Mario World. Now, why is THE Yoshi or Green Yoshi the leading one? Perhaps because he is the most iconic and recognizable of all the Yoshi characters?
The same applies to Toad. If he got in Smash, think of what his alternate colorations will be. Yup, Blue Toad and Yellow Toad will be there along with Green Toad and perhaps alternates involving Purple Toad, Toadette, and even Toadsworth. That is why NSMB Wii is a big factor supporting Toad's inclusion within the next Smash Bros, and he will be the main Toad color as he is the most iconic and recognizable of the Toad characters.
Also, Jack Noir has a point with Navi and assorted faeries. If Toad himself only plays an important role in two or three games BUT people almost exactly the same as him appear in other games (The Toad Brigade, for example, or Sunshine's five toads), and if you count those guys as appearances of "The" Toad, then you should probably count all of the yoshis as "The" Yoshi, or all of the vague glowing dots with wings count as "The" Navi. This guy does not equal this bozo. Also, ever seen this section?
No need to remind us. I'm sure we are all aware of this and the sections you pointed out (I look at this article quite frequently

) As I explained earlier in this post, Toads = Toad. Why? Because Toad is repping for all Toads. They can't just add 10 Toads into Smash as a team. They could only add one, and that would be Toad himself. Yoshi is there alone; however, in the event matches you always see him with his species. Whenever most people see a Yoshi or a Toad, they just see them as Yoshi and Toad as most people prefer seeing the species as a character as opposed to calling them a Yoshi or a Toad.
Even so, how do we know if Yoshi is THE Yoshi? Look at the SSE of Brawl. Why did Yoshi attack Mario and team up with Link instead (though he teams up with Mario later). Character relationships were established since the beginning (eg Zelda- Link, DK - Diddy). Anyways, so he could just be a Yoshi in the developer's mind, but in our minds we look at him as Mario's trustworthy companion known as Yoshi (perhaps he didn't have a good sleep?). Which Pikachu is in Smash? Red's/Ash's? Who knows. For all we know, if a species has notability and has an established sole figure for it, then that character can get in repping his/her entire species as well as the character's own notability.