One thing I did in a couple campaigns I ran was ive everyone magic items at 1st level. I would make one for each character and work it into their background. Sometimes they would not know it was magical. I never really liked the disposable nature of low level items: "Oh, just another +1 long sword, I have 7 here give this to the wizard, I am tired of carrying it...." And then reading how insanely difficult some editions made making items was, why would a wizard BOTHER making a +1 anything? Then you just keep getting rid of your flavor of the week magic weapon for the new one you found, until you find something better.... again boring.
So what I generally do is they either find something, earn it, what ever fluff I have to do to add it to the game. Then I add powers to it as characters go up in level. Sort of like unlocking the powers. This fits better story wise and into fiction better too. Raistlin has a Artifact or 2 at pretty low levels. Lots of support in fiction, nearly any of the Shanarra magic items, the One Ring..... This makes them keep items longer and you can add powers to the items at whatever pace you want.
As far as game balance goes, I have seen countless threads and discussions about PC's that have too much magic, how to balance the party better; how to fix giving out too powerful of an item in the PC's hands etc. You get the drift, DM's getting frustrated at balancing encounters, players getting bored with cake walks. In games I ran I tended to give out lots of magic, but as above I also tried to make them interesting not just boring +1 or +2 thingamabobs. But I liked high magic; WHY play a gritty realistic game, sounds too much like real life for my taste, I'm not trying to recreate 1435 England in my game. However I never had much of an issue with players being too over powered. I adjusted the monsters and encounter difficulty. I did this often on the fly. If the battle was too easy, but a cool encounter, well the monster has more hitpoints or resistance or made the save etc..... (Yeah I cheated LOTS as a DM). But if the combat was interesting WHY end it sooner than what is fun or satisfying? I almost never went by the book. Sometimes I did and the cheating was often saving players characters, not killing them. I did not try to TPK the party; I mean why end a campaign like that? If I screwed up and sent a monster on them that was way too powerful, it would retreat (I mean how many things actually WANT to die? Why stay around and fight to the death?) or it would have less hit points, or I would only give a fraction of the damage I rolled etc, you get the point. I simply wouldn't ALLOW a random encounter to end the party. I was not shy about killing off a character here or there either if it made for a good story and I would fit that in so that the story was satisfying to everyone. I simply won't let the dice and rules hold me hostage when I think a satisfying story is more entertaining. Players have no idea what you really roll anyway. I also have them roll dice sometimes for no reason, just to keep up suspense. But the big thing about high magic is the PCs are more powerful. Which makes numerical number crunching to match the encounter to the PC's silly IMO. Run encounters on the fly. I frequently put very high level monster encounters in my L1-3 games. Yeah, if you are a L1 fighter try TALKING to the gargantuan dragon before attacking...... It might just be looking for directions. I warn the players that just because they MEET something does not mean they have any hope of defeating it in combat. Anyway you get the idea. I think alot of DM's get caught up in actually following the rules, (they are guidelines). It will require you to have to put in way more prep time, and that will not work most of the time anyway. Try dealing with smart creative players, you CAN'T predict what they are going to do. SO I don't try. I never had a problem with the high number of magic or the power level of magic items I gave out. YMMV, but if you don't hold yourself as a slave to the dice, and RAW it makes life easier. Just try to be consistent in your DM style, think about what makes a good story, what is interesting, and go from there.
