It is at least a very important part of the game. Good defense is all about option select. Fuzzy Guard and ETEG are the bases of defense and they are option selects. And you MUST master them in order to get good.

In SF, some chars are option selects dependant but most of them are not. Safe Jumps doesnt work on any char, and at least half of the cast do not have any useful OS in SF4.

btw I did not say that Fuudo implied anything on option selects, I was only talking about execution.