D&D General Design issues with 5e

[mamba]

Yeah, and that's their problem, not WotC's.

if anything that is WotC’s advantage over other games, part of the network effect

 

[tetrasodium]

In 3.xe it was a problem as the power curve was so stupidly steep in that system that being one level adrift was a big deal. It's one of the biggest flaws in that edition.

In 0-1-2e not so much, however; as it's already assumed the party's level will vary anyway due if nothing else to staggered class advancement rates. Also, the power curve in those editions isn't nearly so harsh; a character a level or even two below the party average is still quite viable in play.

Lost levels and lost items are the snakes that counterbalance the much more frequent ladders - level or stat gain, major item acquisition, major rweard, etc. - the game provides.

They provide variety in loss conditions instead of having character death be the only one; and can with time and effort be recovered from, just as death can.

It wasn't as big of a deal as you suggest. On top of the experience scaling needing more and more each level 3.x experience award rules had a multiplier or something that applied to lower level party members to catch up quickly it would pretty quickly have little more impact than missing a session here or there and be one of those things where Alice levels up a season before/after Bob if they ended it right on the edge