I mentioned something similar in the other thread (I think it was that thread). Consider the following 4e encounter and "sameyness."
* 20 * 20 (squares) chamber that is 6 squares high
* South entrance/egress (3 SQ across), East entrance/egress (3 SQ across), and Northwest entrance/egress (3 SQ across - balcony)
* Balcony is far end of the room over the dais, 20 ft up, overhangs the chamber and is 10 * 10
* NPC (someone important to the PCs) is chained to a table on a stone dais at the far end of the room. They're hooked up to a machine with tubes/fluids/wires/electric current running from several beakers/nodes and they're undergoing a transformation when the combat begins. Of-level, Complexity 1 Skill Challenge (4 Success/v 3 rounds) w/ Move Action economy w/ 3 rounds being strapped to it as the loss condition. Success = NPC lives and is ok. Failure = it animates as an Elite Flesh Golem (Brute) and attacks to the death.
* 4 Lightning Pillars Hazards in the room. Opportunity Action if anyone comes within 5 SQ (Close Burst 5) to Attack Ref for of-level Lightning Damage. At the beginning of each round, they animate 1 Minion (Brute) Flesh Golem (immune to Lightning) at their base (which then acts immediately); Brute w/ Attack + Push 1. The Pillars can be shut-down with a Hard Arcana, Athletics, or Thievery check by an adjacent character (Standard Action). They're set up equidistant and cover a large area (20 % of the primary chamber) so Forced Movement into the Hazards' AoE should be a big thing.
* East entrance (3 SQ wide). Every odd round (1, 3, 5, 7), an Iron Golem (Standard Brute w/ a Standard Attack + Push 2 and a Minor Action Attack vs Fort; Fling - Slide 3 SQ) enters room until 4 golems have entered.
* Solo Mad Scientist can teleport from runed square on balcony to adjacent to any of the 4 (active - if destroyed he cannot) Lightning Pillars and the machine on the dais as a Move Action. He can Move back to balcony same way.
Minor Action to animate a Flesh Golem Minion when w/in the Lightning Pillar area.
Suite of Standard Attacks featuring:
Ranged 20 (so basically the whole room) vs Ref Lightning damage+ Slide 3 toward a Lightning Pillar.
Ranged 10 Area Burst 1 - Stun PCs (vs Will) + either heals an Iron Golem 1/4 HP or reanimates a destroyed Iron Golem in the AoE (reanimates w/ Bloodied HPs)
Aura 3 SQ difficult terrain due to waves of thunder (if you start your turn in Aura, Attack vs Will - Slide 3 and either attack adjacent Ally or Stunned; Miss is just Slide 3).
Action Recovery (get rid of negative status).
Just those battlefield dynamics alone will ensure:
a) The fight won't play out like anything approximating the same, even if you instantiated it 5 times with the same group.
b) Whether the fight features a Fighter/Bladesinger/Avenger/Warlord or Warden/Warlock/Invoker/Rogue...each PC is going to have extremely meaningful (impactful and interesting) decisions and a decision-tree that features a menu of (at least) 3-4 diverse approaches in each and every round. There won't be an obvious, optimal choice for anyone at the starting point of combat and there certainly won't be an obvious, optimal choice as the situation (dynamically) progresses.
I don't even need to get into the extreme build diversity possible between these two class set-ups to absolutely ensure that.
I guarantee, if I took any group of 4 ENWorlders, gave them premades, ran them through that combat...nothing would feel "samey" round by round for each character, round by round between each character, and certainly not from one fight to the next.
The encounter you've described is not one that would fit well in my preferred playstyle, either as a player or as a DM. I personally prefer organic encounters that arise as a result of the PCs' strategic choices, so a pre-planned encounter with scripted features like the ones you describe wouldn't really fit. (And from the PC standpoint, in the playstyle I prefer, fighting the enemy on their home turf is usually a last resort, and indicates the PCs have lost the strategic initiative.)
I can definitely see how the encounter you've described would emphasize the differences between powers in 4e. There is a
lot going on at the tactical level, and that matters for which power is most useful at any given moment, so careful round-by-round selection of the order in which to use each power is key.
I can also see, however, how encounters in other styles might de-emphasize the differences between 4e powers. If the PCs elect to attack at maximum range, for (a very simple) example, many of the movement-related special effects of 4e powers may be irrelevant. (E.g. pushing a target 3 squares may be useless at long range if it doesn't change the target's ability to reach full cover on its turn). When encounter specifics cause the special effects of 4e powers to be less relevant, the practical differences between 4e powers start to blur.
I think it's reasonable to conclude that the perceived degree of "samey-ness" in 4e powers may depend on the preferred encounter style of the observer.
As an additional complication caused by differing playstyles, I note that your example encounter appears to assume that differences between powers should be evaluated based on their affect on an encounter
after initiative is rolled. In playstyles that instead emphasize the strategic layer of D&D, the relevant question may instead be to what extent 4e powers differ in their ability to influence,
before initiative is rolled, how, where, when, and whether an encounter takes place.
From the perspective of that kind of playstyle, it may be highly relevant to perceptions of "sameyness" that 4e arguably lacks the range of character abilities found in other editions that would permit, for example, retrieving the NPC in your example encounter without engaging in combat at all. For those who prefer such playstyles, the recurring choice of what order in which to use one's powers may seem repetitive from encounter to encounter, even if all such encounters are designed, like your example, to emphasize the differences between powers.
