Even though Ike isn't a Marth clone You're right Animal Crossing Bells that there was a lot of hatred and disrespect towards Sakurai, but Smash Kingdom was in great fun and generally featured a lot of dark humor.
If anything, it could be claimed that the incidence of unarmed fighters are best balanced out by the inclusion of more weapon-users, swords or otherwise (that is not an argument I would make myself, but it might be...