Sounds like you're using the conclusion to argue the premise. A 4e barbarian who has experienced revisions to many of his powers, feats, and magic items--making some illegal and others ineffective--is still a 4e character, but somehow a 3e barbarian who finds the some of his class features changed in 3.5 is a diiffernt character completely? If there's a thrust to that argument, I must confess, I'm missing it. Some 3.5 characters have had to be rebuilt, and some 4e characters have had to be rebuilt. Same deal.
As to saying 3.5 overwrote 3e books, but 4e revisions don't overwrite 4e books, not sure how you could say that either. 4e updates frequently say "replace sentence X and paragraph Y with this text". That's about as overwritey as it gets.
I'm really not sure how to explain, other than the fact that, once 3.5 was released, people playing 3.5 no longer used 3.0 books. The old splat books (Sword and Fist) were no longer usable. Eventually, new splay books (Complete Warrior) came out to replace them.
Despite all current updates for the 4E rules, as well as when Essentials is released, the same characters will still be using every 4E book released thus far.
These really are two completely different situations.
And it's not just character info that's changed. The PHB no longer contains for stuff like skills, conditions, effects, combat. If there's a question about charging, are you better off looking in your PHB, or your rules compendium?
Are you
better off checking the latest resource? Probably. Are you playing a
different game if you don't? Not at all.
Especially given that, in regards to charging, what they do was more clarification than change. Some people were amazed you could now diagonally charge around monsters - which is how my group has done it from the start, based on the original wording. The change did specify you can use free actions after the charge (which many groups did beforehand, and only mattered in a handful of cases), and there is no longer the requirement to charge to the closest square from which you can attack (which only changes things for characters with reach weapons.)
Honestly, of the actual rules changes? Almost all of them are similarly minute in nature. Is it going to matter to most games that reliable powers refresh when you don't hit with them, rather than when you miss? All those skill changes - all they did was clarify that you could use these skills as part of any movement, not just move actions. Most people worked along those lines via common sense to begin with - I doubt most GMs were going to insist you couldn't jump over a 5' pit while charging.
So, of genuine rules changes? We have the Stealth rules, sure. The 'Hop Down' addition to acrobatics. Some changes to the flying rules, and Aid Another. Most other elements are really just clarifying what is already there.
And yes, we have powers change, and feats. But we don't have sweeping changes to
races, classes, weapons. We have some slight clarifications of skills, and more explanation on how Stealth works. We don't have entire skills - Innuendo, Intuit Direction - vanish and get folded into other skills. Battlerager Fighters have had the mechanics of their class feature altered. But we don't have classes changing armor proficiencies, hit dice, skill points, entire lists of available spells. We have powers themselves that work differently, but not on the level of the 3.5 changes, where some spells vanished entirely, others got completely revamped, changes in names, schools, spell level... Items have been changed, but not, say, the fundamental rules for the prices of items. Some elements of monster design have been updated - such as, for solos, reducing hp to ~80%, and giving them bigger damage when bloodied. But not, say, the fundamental rules of monster design, feats, skills, hit dice, sizes... We've seen clarification on how resistances worked. We haven't had Damage Reduction completely changed.
I mean, I felt that D&D 3.5 was indeed an improvement over 3.0. I never had an issue with the change. But I don't see how you can compare it to the current situation. Many characters in the change had to be completely rebuilt.
But of all the changes and updates that have happened in 4E? How many have actually
required rebuilding a character? Sure, many might feel there character isn't as effective/overpowered as before, and desire to give them an overhaul. In a handful of cases, the changes are enough that a feat actually is no longer useful, or the character no longer qualifies for it. So they need to change, say, one feat. Or one power. In most cases, being able to do so entirely through the built-in retraining system.
How many ordinary characters have had to actually rebuild based on changes? The only times I regularly see it happening are with builds out of char-op. And many times, no rebuild is
required.
Claiming this is the exact same thing as the changeover from 3.0 to 3.5... yeah, I absolutely cannot agree. Those changes were simply more significant, more universal, and more fundamental than having a small portion of feats and powers work slightly differently than printed.
