I hate all shotos. I think they're cheap and annoying, and I hate how every street fighter character is either a shoto or an anti-shoto. Throwing fireballs and doing uppercuts is like fishing, only cheaper.

I like to kick a shoto's ass though. Pretty gratifying. So I guess I like them for that. If I'm forced to pick a Shoto, or I just want to for the hell of it, I'd go with Ken in third strike or Ryu V-ism in Alpha 3. That way I get to pretend I'm Daigo and I feel much cooler.

Furthermore, Dan isn't a shoto. I like to play as him too, am I an idiot

Examples of anti-shoto characters, characters designed specifically around countering shoto moves are all over steret fighter.

This is by no means a complete listing of all of the moves and characters, but here's a rough idea of some of the stuff that's readily apparent: Guy's backspin elbow, dodges fireballs and hits them when they try to toss one. The bushin flip does the same, but is riskier and goes over the top. The flash kick is to nail people after a failed shoryuken that missed, same with a lot of the supers in the games. Wrestler characters have to take the defensive and play a reactive role against shotos since shotos basically control the ground and air. The whole game is centered around countering the shoto guys, and making moves that balance theirs out.

Fights get a lot more interesting when nobody picks a shoto. Karin vs. Guy, for example, is a great fight. I for one would like to see a street fighter type game without any projectiles or flaming uppercuts, but with real martial arts combat. It'd be cool if, for example, they had an actual muay thai fighter instead of Sagat.