I'd say Kim's best normal is st.mk, but yeah that's a problem with her cr.mk for sure. Most of her neutral skip moves are react-able and therefore "fake" vs competent players. You kinda gotta throw the kitchen sink at them and hope something lands sometimes, which doesn't yield much stability/consistency.
I don't see her as a sleeper pick at all. IMO she is clearly a bottom 2 character. Whether she's better than Zangief or not is debatable, but there's no way she's above anyone else. She has tools, just less strong ones compared to the rest. Stubby neutral, low damage, the worst defensive options in the game are enough for me to make that call.
Marisa isn't hard to play, but it takes a fundamentally strong player to be consistent with her. She can be quite volatile due to her lack of speed, poor defense (not quite as bad as Kimberly's, but bad) and a 1 size fits all anti air option.
I'd say the easiest character in the game is clearly Ken btw. He requires the least effort to be dominant and hits almost as hard as Marisa without her weaknesses.
I don't see a command grab as ever being busted due to it always being a risk.
Guile, Ken, Juri, Luke, Deejay and JP are all OBJECTIVELY better than her, so I hope you don't play any of them while talking about who need expeditious nerfs
Cammy is generally seen as stronger (though it's close IMO). Chun Li, Dhalsim, and Blanka are arguably better as well.