<anti pedantry shields up> Oh, get off that! Gish = generic fighter/mage concept or build has been a generic usage term for decades. Does it really matter what the lore origins of the term were in 1e AD&D?
Language evolves whether correct or not. "Irregardless" is going to be a "real" word in probably 10 years because of popular usage. In the same way that "Whelm" and "Overwhelm" mean basically the same thing with "overwhelm" being a doubling down emphasis on "whelm". But while "whelm" has fallen out of popular usage or even knowledge of its meaning today, "overwhelm" is alive and well to a whelming degree. </anti pedantry off>
<Back to the
lecture disgussion at hand...> I think that Bladesinger IS viable in melee and for use more defensively as a standard wizard. I have more fun using them in melee because it's different.
I also thought the 2e version was OP for what you got and the restrictions you had, which is why none of my DM's would let me play one. They agreed that it was OP