Bah, no updates that interest me this week. ;__;

I usually prefer timed matches to stock, since everyone gets to play the entire time. In stock matches the worst player (and rarely me, mind you =P ) generally dies less than half-way through the match and has to wait for the other guys to finish. Timed matches also encourage playing aggressively, and the guy who stays out of the fray for most of the match and finally goes after the last stragler doesn't have an advantage.

As a little less number centric answer,

How to Kill: basically, if you get knocked too far off the screen in any way you die. Fall, tossed up, left behind, etc. The more damage you take, the more your precentage goes up and the "lighter" you become, making it easier and easier for your opponents to knock you around and further. So, Off-screen is the dead zone, and if you even go off the screen a little and try to come back, you will even take gradual damage till you get back on-screen.

How to Win Time Battles: Take your kills and subtract your deaths, the highest score wins!

How to Win Stock Battles: Each player has a certain number of live, the last one standing wins!

How to Win Coin Battles (not sure if it will make a return): The more you hit someon the more coins (spoils) will pop out. The harder you hit them, the bigger the denomination of coins will pop out. You or anyone else can collect these coins, even the person hit. The person with the most coins wins!

Team Battles: Team members do not take damage from teammates. If one runs out of lives, they can "steal" another life from their teammates (or not), until nobody in the team has lives left.

There are sure to be other modes that we don't know about yet.

It's worth noting, though, that Ridley -doesn't- appear here as some sort of hazard, even after the specific mention of him early on.

 You're right.  Kraid was in a stage causing havoc in Melee.  This still leaves the option of Ridley being a character.  *crosses fingers*

Ridley is enormous though.  The difference between Samus and Ridley's sizes is even greater than that of Mario and King Koopa.  To put it into Brawl's sizing, Ridley is essentially the size of Giga-Bowser (or bigger).

Size doesn't matter. Kirby is approximately 8 inches tall. Bowser's height varies from game to game.

Bowser's height has always been variable.  However, Ridley has always been enormous.

Ridley would make a better Adventure mode boss than playable character.

Actually, in the options you can change how suicides affect your score. You can make it neutral, -1, or -2. That's how it was in Melee anyway. Hopefully in Brawl you can tweak it up to -11!

so what if you are on a timed battle and two characters end with the same points? Does it then go on percentage or is it a draw.

Both characters start a new match with 300% damage and the first to die loses.

EDIT---Incidentally, the match rarely lasts more than maybe 2 seconds.