This is all personal opinion and should not construed as anything else. No offense to any person or party is meant in this rant.
My D&D is a game about fantasy heroes, heroes who brave dangers in the name of Glory, Wealth and The Good of All. The game itself, from the very first edition is built around fighting, Fact. The rules in general through several editions have revolved around solving conflict, Fact, read your rulebooks. Fun is had by all paricipating in the game when a conflict is successfully resolved, with everyone around the table participating to resolve it. This holds true whether the conflict is combat, social, an obstacle or any thing else the DM has put in the way of the characters to hinder them in thier quest. This I have learned from 22 years of roleplaying experience (For what it is worth including but not limited to: BEMCI, AD&D 2nd Ed, D&D3, D&D3.5, Iron Heroes, Arcana Evolved, Shadowrun, Battletech, Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, D20 Modern, Star Wars, Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Unknown Armies amongst others)
When you are sitting at a table to play a game of conflict resolution (pick your system), it is not fun to have one player purposefully holding his character back from a specific type of conflict resolution. In D&D the most common form quoted on the forums is the "non-combat" character, designed to be useless in combat. Trust me on this, when you have 4 or 5 characters pitted against a challenge, it is not fun to have to pick up the slack for a playter who does not want to partake in the challenge. It is annoying to everyone else at the table. It is also not fun when this "non combat" character uses his spesifically picked skills/feats/spells/powers/class abilities/traits/advantages to totally dominate all non-combat, religating all other players in the game to little more than body guards for his frail little sheep who can talk rings around Orcus. You are not being clever with your character, you are being annoying and getting in the way of everyone elses fun.
And in general in a democracy, 4 peoples fun is more important than 1.
A munchkined "non-comat" specialist is just as annoying as a munchkined combat specialist. It does not promote roleplaying either. Roleplaying is not, I use spell x, combined with skill c, roll, I succeed woohoo, the ancient Red Dragon is now my pet lizard.
To quote Mallus:
Let's call this the Incompetence Fallacy; the belief that a character is inherently deeper, better rounded, and/or more interesting because they're bad at what they're supposed to good at...
Going along with this is the Competence Corollary; a character get less interesting the better he or she is at what they're supposed to be good at. This is nonsense, too.
In designing 4e, they have purposefuly designed in that
all characters are effective at combat, and that
all characters can effectively participate in non-combat activities. This makes it fun for everyone sitting at the table, as you now have the choise to participate in all aspects of the game, whether your character sheet says fighter, wizard, rogue, bard or barbarian. Also, as many people complain you can't trade combat ability for non-combat ability. Good, tell me why your learned sage who would not lift a finger to harm a butterfly is travelling through the goblin and kobold infested tunnels of the ruins of Kalishar, and how he expected to survive.
Another good thing, in my opinion, is that non-combat abilities are no longer defined by your class, but by your skill and feat selections. This means you don't automatically gain the "I dominate non combat encounters" by the mere virtue of being a bard (+31 to diplamacy at level 3 anyone?), rogue or wizard, allowing other classes a say in the non-combat part of the game as well.
Yes, it is fun for an outlandish barbarian to try and use intimidat to impress the court, it is not fun for him to have to stand back and watch his bard companion auto succeed his diplomacy check and make any effort on the barbarians part useless.
Yes, it is fun for a wizard to use spells, damaging or otherwise, in inventive ways to help turn the tide of combat. It is not fun for the rest of the party to watch little Timmy the Magic User, stand back, because well these undead are immune to my usual array of charm and illusion spells, and no, I did not memorise magic missile because my charm and illusion spells worked so well on the goblins and orcs we usually fight, rendering them docile and unable to fight back, and no-one told me we were fighting undead today.
That is all.
Phaezen
Having a 2-3 day "marathon" gaming session with the guys I used to play D&D (LBBs/B/X/AD&D) with as a kid and young teen. It's been basically 25 years since we played together, and I thought S&W would be perfect (I sold all my LBBs and JG stuff a few years back, unfortunately). Your effort looks great-enough to make me choose it over all the other old -school options, and I wanted to say thanks! 
