>>536982760
Meta Knight could've worked in the original KDL2 since we got Meta-lite (Blade), diet-Axe (Butch) and discount-Mace (Masher). Probably what happened was Shomomura didn't want to use Sakurai's character without the Sword ability, which wouldn't have served a function Cutter or Parasol didn't do in his games.
KDL3/K64 were also anomalies in the series in that it's usually better to fight the bosses as Normal Kirby than with abilities, which would have sucked against Meta Knight.