I don't have any views about 3E. I've played only a very small amount of it, and as a design I think it has a number of well-known problems.
The most interesting thing to be about 3E is that if you apply a level-bonus to AC but call it "natural armour" then many RPGers will regard that as a simulation even though it is just a label with no meaning in the fiction whatsoever (ie the best possible magic armour is +5 plate for around +14 AC, while there are natural armour bonuses in the 30s - what is "natural armour" that is so much better than what the best smith can possibly forge?). Mutatis mutandis for many other aspects of 3E.
Why would the best possible magic armour that you could make for a human be the best possible armour? Logic tells me that bigger creatures with higher strength could have an armour that is better then the best human armour. For example why would Dragons be limited to wearing human armour?
I think a muich bigger problem is when you can have a naked human with a better AC then a human wearing the best possible human armour. That is a massive derp for me.