In Brawl, I main Link and use his DACUS a lot. Almost to the point of being overused. It gives a usually sluggish Link some decent speed. Excellent for approach, as well. This, along with Link's Arrows, Bombs, Boomerang and aerial Clawshot makes for some very efficient spacing. There are some good combos to pull of consisting of short hops, fast falls, forward aerial, neutral aerial, back aerial, bombs, boomerang, arrows, clawshot, dash attack and finishing off with a DACUS.
While Link's recovery isn't good, it's not terrible either. What to keep in mind is that if you activate the spin attack after having just been hit, you will get no horizontal movement. This is worthless to recover with. You shouldn't mid-air shield an attack, because the lag of the dodge will leave you too low to recover from. To recover and dodge an attack at the same time, use the double jump just a little bit before you mid-air shield, so then you are still travelling upwards while you have invincibility frames, ready to use the clawshot or spin attack to recover straight after. Point of advice, using the spin attack right after the double jump provides a greater reach upwards. Pulling out a bomb well in advance, and using its hitbox to attack a helpless Link allows a second spin attack to be use in mid-air, though this is hard to pull off correctly.