even as ai write this, I will post first off that this is not intended or expected to change sonofa's mind. i doubt we are seeing his mind after all, cuz this sure looks to me like a troll, not a discussion.
I think most people tend to agree that changing the way TWf was put together in 3e to improve it a little bit was a good idea. Even sonofa mentioned a while back his preferred improvement with the strength thingy. Somewhere between two feats for cancelling the big bonuses involved in TWf down to the more normal -2/-2 and the half strength off hand and the price for two weapons, it all was something which became less than "as good" as other options for combat styles.
WOTC looked at it in play, listened to people and decided to make a fix to improve it some. OK!
The fix they chose, cutting the "penalty goes to -2/-2" down to one feat made it less expensive to take it. OK!
It also had a second impact. It can now be taken for characters at first level right from the start. An elven rogue does not need to wait until 3rd level to figure out how to use shortswords in both hands, any more than an elven rogue needs to wait until 3rd level to learn to use a greatsword two handed. Both combat options now require just one feat which he gains at first level.
So the change WOTC chose also tends to even out the ability to start with the fighting style between TWF and THF.
Sure, they could have decided to change how strength works in off hands and left it at two feats, but that would still have left it out of the reach of many starting characters. i suppose if you consider that delay a good thing, then you would prefer sonofa's house rule suggestion to be superior to the change wotc made.
I guess you can sum it up relatively easily... should an elven rogue be able to start the game with effective two weapon fighting? if so, then the one feat notion is probably your choice of preference too. If you think thats wrong or will break your game in two like an adamantine greatsword sundering a wand in 3.5, then you should probably consider house rules.
Me, i like it. it is one of the relatively few things i like about 3.5. But then, thats probably just me.
i think we all have a good idea as to where sonofa claims to comes down on this one.