Only played as Chun-Li and Dhalsim back in the day. Liked the range of Dhalsim and that upside down helicopter flight kick Chun-Li could performed.
If one count the CPU-only characters that later became playable my favorite is Vega. Sitting ducked down in a corner for a while and then fly around was fun.

Chun-li, easily.

I think Ryu is pretty cool too, even more considering he has to fill the role of good guy main character.

Ryu and it isn't close. Fireballs to get people to jump and when they jump dragon punch.

Sagat was a beast in the later versions but a bit slow.

Angie’s enough said

My main was Chun-Li, my strategy was mostly jump fierce kick to crouching fierce kick and it worked remarkably well on my friends.

It do be Chun-Li.

I always use Chun-Li, but when my daughter was little (I raised her on retro games), she would use E. Honda and man... that sumo can eat. One wrong move, one slip up, and you're down in like three seconds. She use to get me cornered occasionally, and crack up while I was screaming for my life haha.

I had SF2 on the Sega Megadrive. I always played as Vega, I liked how he could lose his claw.

If talking about just the original 8 characters then its Ryu.

But if we go all the way down the SSF2T then its Akuma :)

Zangief, I really loved playing a grappler a the time.

Also, what does Ryu say when he meets Ken?

Hadoken?