Freezie KO
Banned
What about every other things I listed to support the ambition claim, that have nothing to do with the refinement of the 3D Land fixed isometric camera view?
Ambition to me speaks to an attempt to reach higher heights than have been reached before, not simply through improvement but by a large leap forward. If JFK said we were going to get people to fly slightly higher into the atmosphere, that's not very ambitious. Going to the moon is ambitious.
But since you asked for the things you listed, here's my opinion on it:
Music - honestly, I only remember the big band trailer music. It's good. But it doesn't scream ambition. It's just good new music. Ambition would be risking an element of the game in order to try something better than has ever been done.
An orchestral soundtrack was ambitious for the series. There Will Be Blood's soundtrack was ambitious. Not having a soundtrack is ambitious. New fun tracks? Cool. Not ambitious.
Controller Options - Nice to have. Not ambitious.
3D map - I actually really like the map. But it's just the 2D style map tilted, so you can play around in a 3D environment (not unlike how much of the 3D Land level-style is). It's an interesting refinement on what existed prior.
Amount of power ups - I do think they're putting effort into this. There's the cherries, the cat suit, the ice skate, and the goomba mask. Am I missing any new ones? The rest are all from old games, right? So four new power-ups?
I know the cat suit will play a larger part, and that's okay for a refinement on the formula. But ambition? I don't see it. Power-ups are like powering up your airplane to fly higher/faster/longer. Ambition is changing your plane into a shuttle and flying to the Moon.
Multiplayer - Adding multiplayer is about the least ambitious thing you can do nowadays. It's a common publisher strategy to force multiplayer into games to increase sales. And after the success of NSMB Wii, adding multiplayer to Mario is about the least risky thing you can imagine.
Specific character abilities - I don't think recycling the SMB2usa abilities is ambitious. A nice throwback? Sure, I guess. But ambition has to go beyond someone saying, "Hey, let's add in the SMB2 characters!" and then three days later, someone codes them in and that's that.