I2 had 28 starting characters, I think MK11 should have at least the same number of starting characters. The number of characters should increase or, at least, stays the same when a studio creates another fighting game.
I find the OP's rant normal, he's not happy with 25 chars (let's hope the Day One DLC Shao Khan isn't part of the 25 btw) and it's his right to complain about it and I agree with him.
games like Soul Calibur does not even have that on top of re-used assets.
The last Soul Calibur has no content, almost every returning characters have the same outfit, same voice lines and the same move set, the character creation is the exact same one as the one in SCV and the story mode is empty... This game might be fun to play in local 1v1, but it's still a zero effort cash grab from Bandai Namco. Netherrealm could sell MK11 with just the main menu and it would have more content than SC6