I didn't say anything about them promising 2-3 third party characters. All I said was that the Smash blog said that there would probably be a maximum of 2-3 third party characters. That's not the same thing as making a promise.

Why would Nintendo need to say anything at all about that though? All Nintendo felt was necessary was announcing what would be in the game. I doubt people would really want to know what wouldn't make the cut unless it was originally supposed to be a part of a game in the first place. This applies for just about anything else, really.

Not that I necessarily disagree with that, but I doubt Nintendo would go and throw in another character instead of the one they originally wanted in the first place. That'd be almost the same thing as Sega saying they wouldn't allow Sonic to be in the game, but would allow Alex Kidd instead (obviously that was only a example, but you get the point). Why would Nintendo go with a unwanted substitute over their original choice?

Well yeah. Square helped develop Mario RPG. They obviously have some rights to the game. With that in mind, Nintendo had to give credit for Geno's appearance in M&L. If you saw something that belonged to you being used in something like that, you'd want some credit too, wouldn't you? If Nintendo just went and included that cameo without giving any sort of credit to Square, Square could go and take it to court for breaking copyright laws and that'd just be a problem on Nintendo's part.