jgsugden
Legend
4E is EXTREMELY efficient, stable and balanced. This is, however, not better. There was a lot of criticism about how monotone it was and how every class was substantially similar in design, and so many powers were essentially reskins of each other because the constraints of the system left them so little creative options.I would say many consider the math of 4e to work better for character balance and monster design and encounter design and magic item costs and magic item-less campaigns.
5e math has an advantage in bound accuracy so it works better in bringing in creatures of CR more than five below APL compared to 4e.
I once heard it describe that 4E tried to improve the game in the same way that some people try to improve their dietary choices - by stripping it down to a bland repetitive core that hit the marks on paper, but was entirely unsatisfying day after day to most.