Critics seemed to like it well enough; and there is definitely a vocal group of fans in the Nintendo community who love it. This is the weirdest claim in the whole post so I need to dwell on it.
It pushed over a million units, and we've seen far worse performing games (Famicom Detective Club, Xenoblade) get remakes on Switch, so I don't think that in particular is a mark against it.
Two years is a lot of time for things to change; and they clearly have seeing as he teased the prospects of a port on his YouTube channel a few months ago.
(The fact that he has been asked about it multiple times in the Switch gen, in 2018 before,
and mentioned the number of fan requests for a remake or sequel in the 2021 comment should be proof enough that the game is well regarded, but I digress).
Sakurai isn't retired in that he will never work on a video game again; that isn't what he said at all. The speculation is pretty sound overall considering how remaster / remake heavy 2023-2024 seems to be based on rumors: Return to Dream Land in February, F-Zero GX, Metroid Prime, Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, maybe now Baten Kaitos and possibly others from less reliable sources. I think it fits right in with the GC and Wii remasters as a beloved game that won't be coming in emulated form anytime soon.