Believable control does, I think, have a certain important in the viewpoint of critics of the AEDU structure. If the fighter has control over when he does a special maneuver that's more effective in some way than his more common attacks, why does he then lose control over when he can do it? What's a credible explanation for that? For some things, I can buy into the fatigue explanation, but then why can I do this other similarly once/day maneuver? Ultimately, a little rejiggering of the way dailies work can provide a more believable context by putting them in the same fatigue pool and making the dailies otherwise interchangeable.
I don't think of what is being represented as fatigue or anything like that; this is part of what I meant by "it's not as simplistic as that". Typically, what is being represented, as I see it in my mind, is opportunity. Something happens that allows an opening, if timed ane executed correctly, for a particularly effective "sucker move". What this opportunity consists of, exactly, will vary enormously - one instance a recognition of the enemy's intentions (from body language and focus of attention tracking, with consequent openings for trickery or invoking overconfidence), another a recognition of a weakness in the opponent's gear (giving openings to snag or pull them, or to cause distraction and consternation), yet another instance recognition of a psychological blindspot, hatred or similar vulnerability. Whatever the opportunity, part of the fighter's skill lies in noticing, recognising and knowing how to exploit these openings, whatever they are and however they arise.
Now, a question arises as to how such things should be modelled in the game. Perhaps the most "naturalistic" way would be to roll d1000 every turn and see what turned up on a table (where many or most of the entries are "nothing much", but maybe certain manoeuvres are designed to get better results on this table??). I imagine, though, that this would get old for most people pretty fast. For me I'd give it one combat.
4Es alternative is to let the
player of the character choose when such opportunities occur. Of the individuals present, it seems to me that the player of the character is the best available choice, provided that they have clear limits on their agency, but others clearly disagree.
Older editions of D&D "solve" the problem by ignoring such moves entirely; I don't really find this a very satisfactory method, personally - that skilled fighters can never pull off such moves seems frankly rather unnatural.
Other systems have different approaches; HârnMaster, for all that it is long in the tooth and generally quite "old school", has an action economy and attack/defence move selection system that facilitates such moves "naturally" to a limited extent; a sort-of "partial solution", to my mind. Other games, such as RoleMaster from my (limited) understanding of it, deal with such moves through the "critical hit" system (i.e. treat them as random occurrences).
Of all of these, 4e's abstraction of the "opportunity" into a "limited choice" is the simplest by far, and it suits a particular ("Narrativist") play style well, apparently.
I would, however, really work to divorce Hussar's issue with 3x weapon crits and 3[W] damage powers. He's conflating two things that aren't the same issue at all. The crit in 3e represents the lucky blow/shot that anybody could get and is matched by 4e's somewhat simplified crit system. Neither are under the player's or PC's direct control although in both systems, the PC could take measures to improve their performance with that kind of luck. The 3[W] power really does reflect something directly under the PC's/player's control and is more akin to special maneuvers that a 3e PC might have via a feat. Apples and oranges, really.
I'm not so sure. Lucky shots or attacks that go amazingly well to plan, matching the attacker's intention better than might have been expected, are certainly one thing "critical hits" model. But it's clear that there are other cases where they model other circumstances besides this (I look at RoleMaster's and DragonQuest's critical hit tables to see proof). I think I could make a case for 4e's "critical hit" to be "just" an attack that goes very well to plan - the damage caused is only above the maximum that could theoretically be caused by a "non-critical" attack by virtue of enchantment effects. 3.x's damage multipliers, on the other hand - differentiated by weapon, to boot - seem to be trying to reflect something more.
I think there's a lot less difference here in the mundane's moves and the spellcasters' power moves. What I think we really have is the mundanes, fighter types mostly, have relatively consistent and steady output. They hit, they do damage, on a fairly consistent rate. Spellcasters, in older editions in particular, have a higher rate of failed actions (particularly at higher levels with the better saves of more powerful targets), but produce bigger spikes of output when they succeed. Factored together, they tend to balance reasonably well.
I don't think this is really the same issue as the relative power of "power moves" thing. FWIW I agree that older editions were better balanced for the fighter (I'm not so sure about the thief, but whatever). But the issue here is that D&D spellcasters get to spot an opportunity and exploit it. This "feels", to me, like
exactly the sort of activity a fighter
should be engaging in - it's almost the poster boy for what I see "realistic" medieval fighters doing all the time. And yet they can't do it - at all. It's what a fighter character's focus should be on throughout pretty much every fight - but all they get to think about is which enemy to belt next...
