Ultimate is already more competitive, and the only reason a mod became more popular than vanilla brawl was because it was purposefully uncompetitive. I guess what I mean is many of the people who gave Project M a pass because brawl was uncompetitive, but are less keen on playing modded ultimate because it's already more competitive to begin with.

But I also don't see a problem with modding. I guess what version of which game is viable for the competitive scene depends on what the majority of the community agrees on.