EVEN IF they for the most part ignore balancing until after the game has launched (they have to have at least some balancing so the game is at least playable), I still doubt they can come up with 12 new, well-designed character concepts by summer of next year. As far as bad character design concepts (I hope they dont poop out 12 generic anime stereotypes instead of actually being creative) and poorly designed/uninspired movesets, those arent really things that I see them being able/willing to fix with patches. I doubt they'll have time to refine all the returning character's movelists either.
I don't like how game companies do business nowadays. There is no possible way that Odashima and co. have the type of drive and fire for the series that they should have (and that is necessary to deliver the type of quality game that the community is seeking) when they are working 5-6 days a week doing 12-14 hour days.
Even Blizzard's vice president of creative development, Chris Metzen, has openly admitted to losing the fire and the drive after a while working on something, and Blizzard is well known for their policy of "release the game when it's ready", giving their employees ample time to work on their projects.
I might be digressing a little bit here, but the few puzzle pieces that Namco is throwing us don't seem to form a pretty picture so far. I'll admit that this is for the most part needless worrying, but Namco sure could do a better job keeping us more involved and easing our concerns.
...and we have every right to be concerned after all the problems that SC3 and SC4 had.