This is never a good thing. Never.
I prefer brawl to melee as well since, as you said, it is much more accessible than melee's weird advanced mobility, but holding good players back to help bad players is always a terrible idea. Look at Skullgirls: it got a lot of praise for being so easily accessible to new players while it also allows for some amazingly impressive feats and high-skill play. Without tripping, Brawl would have been just as accessible to new players as it is now, while still being great for competitive play (albeit way too floaty). Adding tripping was just a big slap in the face to the comp scene.