How come the 'wizards suck' camp seem to be comparing level 5 3.5 wizards to level 1 4th ed wizards? The wizard still hands out about as much damage as the fighter per turn, as he did at 1st level in 3.5 (except he could only do it once or twice before sleeping for 8 hours). Our wizard routinely hits 2-3 targets for 8-10 damage each, even with encounters vs only 4 or 5 monsters. And that's without any minions at all (when my party fought 24 giant rats, the wizard killed about 18 of them). Because of the dungeon environment, it's pretty rare not to be able to blast 2 or more monsters at a time. Also because of that same cramped environment, the ranger will be shooting into cover (making his chance of hitting worse than the wizard's), and the rogue will struggle to flank. The wizard ignores cover with area spells such as scorching burst though, and against 3 or more targets averages as much damage output as a ranger or rogue does against one.
Anyway, like most of 4th, the test is in the playing. The whole issue is one joke for us, as most of our encounters end with some smoking monsters, and someone saying 'of course, wizards are underpowered' (cue widespread laughter).