The idea is that a skilled Meta Knight will beat a skilled Ganondorf, even if a skilled Ganondorf can easily beat an unskilled Meta Knight. I'm a Yoshi main; he's lower-middle tier, but is one of the few characters that can come close to matching Meta Knight in a matchup due to the chaingrab.
Overall, I'd give the gameplay edge to Melee simply due to it being faster. However, I do love both games nearly equally, and hopefully SSB4 will be great as well.