In this thread and others something that has finally caused me to comment. It's not a version war or anything...
I have seen TONS of comments about 3.0 and 3.5 talking about how wizards were overpowered and basically took the glory from all other classes. They had too many spells that did too many different 'utility' things. This was stated as a terrible problem with 3.x
Then I see not quite as many, but still large numbers of comments stating that ANOTHER flaw of 3.x wizards is the idea of selecting your spells - that unless you knew exactly what you were going to run up against you had to basically choose generic spells or attack spells of a general type.
I guess I'm not seeing how both can be a problem. It sounds to me like Problem #2 was a balancing factor on Problem #1...which might be why our group never saw wizards as show-stealers.
I'm not suggesting any one individual simultaneously claimed both as problems, but in my experience two contradictory 'problems' is generally a sign of no problem other than in perception/attitude.
I personally think the Pro-4E people exaggerate the power of the wizard to try to downplay what 4E did to the wizard.
But that being said, I also think alot of people played with DMs that allowed 3.5E wizards to do too much. They allowed wizards to abuse every loophole they could find with spells like shapechange andgate. They incorporated every broken spell 3.5 put out like avasculate and solipsism. They played with wizards prior to the 3.5 fix to archmage. Things like that.
It seemed that WotC would put supplements that would break the wizard such as new monster books that gave a particular monster they could change into that was overpowered or summon a new uber powerful creature that would wreck an encounter or fight better than the fighter. Or a new spell book with a few new key spells that were much better than anything else at equivalent level. Or a PrC that gave a much better advantage to the wizard class than any other wizard Prc such as archmage or the original elmental savant.
The wizard in the 3.5 PHB was fine. The wizard after all the splat books was a danger to balance if the DM didn't keep abreast of what was going on and was willing to put the kibosh on overpowered spells and combinations as soon as he saw them. That would mean arguing with your players, something I know quite a few DMs don't like to do.