I think the fact that your players played 1E/2E shows how that mentality is hard to shake. Like other posters said Fireball was the spell you waited for and was a mass killer in the days before power attack and sneak attack - so they roll out the usual suspects and keep making the same mistakes...
Hope to see more - npc's, adventure ideas & what not .. a great concept (much better than the mad scientist role) ... I had a gnome town in an old campaign called Zunich .. financial and banking services was its focus (as in Gnomes of Zurich)
Anyone out there done any affiliations (as per DMG2) for the war of the burning sky (3.5 edition) - affiliation scores, benefits etc would be great. Thanks.
And if not lets get a thread going!