Lol. Crazy how you can learn things from the least likely teachers.
I'd like to give my perspective when it comes to the playing low/mid tier characters thing. When I picked my character, I wasn't a good Soulcalibur player, so there was no way for me to know why my character was "low tier". It wasn't until I became good that myself and others acknowledged Xiba as mid tier. Now, as thankful as I am for the skill that I have acquired through that, if I were to go back from the beginning with my current skill set, there is no way I'd pick Xiba. It is really just a luck of the draw and as someone who wants to win I'd pick the best character that I enjoy. The reason I didn't switch back in 2014 is because I felt that the meta was too advanced to learn another character. I would have to exceed my skill level that I had with my Xiba knowledge, play lots of match ups in a small player pool, and then be good enough to win a tournament in the span of months. Don't think it would've been possible to be a threat to the best if I played a high/top tier with that much experience on year 2-3. The only time I think that would really help is if you played a character that was truly balls like ZWEI or Damp, but even then I don't think that's a big enough time frame to take the whole thing at a tournament like Final Round or NEC.