Gex? Really? I would take any rumors mentioning Gex with a grain of salt - he doesn't make sense.
I owned and enjoyed his first game on the PS1, but he also had an N64 game and if I ever associate Gex with a console its not with the PS1 or PS2, its with the 3DO. Gex was out on the platform first, and that game was one of the only reasons to own one.
I also want to say that I'm a huge Nintendo fan boy, and Smash Brothers is one of my all time favorite franchises. That being said this game is day one for me. I love Parapa the Rapper, and Sony has an interesting enough mix of first party characters to make this work. On top of that, Smash is a once in a generation franchise and I've wanted a good smash clone (or several) for a while. Not wanting one is like a Street Fighter fan being mad that they're making a King of Fighters game - games are only clones until there are enough of them to be a genre.