How does it punish aggression? If there's no time, it's not like there's something keeping a player who wants to be aggressive from doing so. Aggressiveness doesn't always equal mistakes if a player knows how to do what they want to do. Whereas if there is time, then it does keep a player who wants to be patient from doing so (Admittedly this is only if they go down by a significant margin, or late enough in the round they need to get moving), mistakes are borne in this case from a player having to play outside of their style. I simply see stock as less restrictive than time. And yes I am definitely biased, as I fall into the defensive category, and I certainly don't have tournament level experience, what I'm saying is merely my opinion.
It's pretty much always safer to play defense than offense in fighting games. Sticking to low risk moves that control space and are hard to punish tends to be easier to get away with than trying to actually gain ground against someone doing that. Obviously it's a big generalization but that's the gist, and it means that without a time limit defensive play becomes much more optimal, especially when you consider that human patience/endurance is a limited thing and the longer you can successfully stall, the likelier it becomes that your opponent won't be playing well.
Gotcha. Smash is p much the only fighting game I've put considerable hours into so I didn't know that was the norm in most fighters. Thanks for informing me! ---