I loved 3e growing up. I think I completely resonate with the OP comments in regards what I think might have happened with the transition from 2e to 3e. I stopped playing for years when 3.5 came out. But it always turned me off for how much was available to choose from for min maxing. I loved...
I don't know if your interested but Dorks of Yore from youtube has a clip of Tim Kask describe how he had to convince (fight tooth and nail) with Gary Gygax to make the change for Magic Missile to become an auto-attack.
I don't understand how attempting to balance out classes is a silly idea. At least to me, it seems that this was a way for some attempt to discourage clerics to have just as good of AC as a fighter.
Mind you, I played mostly a cleric in my 3E days. We never played RAW rules and mostly played...