Actually, come to think of it, I tend to like the faster charcters as well, even if they aren't as strong. It's not because of button mashing, but because they're hard to hit if since they're so fast (Chun-Li, Ling Xiao-Yu, Kasumi, Lei-Fang). Though there is an exception to this, I like using Lei Wu-Long in the Tekken series—probably because I like watching Jackie Chan action movies (hey why not have humor in your martial arts movies?).
BTW, I think I noticed a DOA2 character selection correlation for myslef. Aren't Kasumi & Hayabusa tag team matches and Lei-Fang & Jahn Lee tag team matches as well?