I'll go through a few points, although Im not sure anyone is still paying attention.
1. Art
Personally I've liked almost all of what I've seen from 3.5 I don't know any artists by name, but I did think the new elven chain looks awesome. Fact is, I like a lot of 3.0 art too. Had *all* the art been changed, I would have been miffed. After all, theres a lot of good art that I won't bother to keep around (I plan on giving my 3.0 books away to spread dnd, the true virus!
) and I may miss some of the pictures. Had they changed *none* of the art then I would still be griping about a couple pictures that I don't particularly like. By changing a small amount of art and adding a small amount of new art, presumably they have made someone very happy. While that person may not be me, Im glad that this way there is a chance of pleasing some of the crowd (and in the process, not really displeasing too many other people).
Remember this is still 3rd edition. When I reminisce back about it and mention the picture of Lidda's face being blown off for failing a UMD roll, I hope anyone regardless of when they started to know what I mean. All new art would prevent that, and 1/2 or some other large percentage may hamper it. I think they went the best possible way they could with the art aspect. In the same way, I hope to see some Sword and Fist and other splat-book art in whatever books follow, some of it was good awesome art that shouldnt be lost forever in some splatbook (Blood Magus springs to mind).
2. Class Skills
There was actually a whole discussion about this, and the designers actually gave most of their reasoning/discussion behind the changes. Wow. I mean, has that EVER happened before? I'm sure it has, but its clearly a rare thing. Part of this 3.5 phenomenon was supposed to make it easier to backwards compatabilize it. So, theoretically a lot of sorcerors may have needed massive retuning if an entire subset of skills were added. Furthermore, the sorceror only gets *2+int* skills per level. Thats very little my friend, especially when you factor in the "base" skills most arcanists will take, regardless of particular style. Adding bluff was perhaps the best decision they could make. Bluff is extermely versatile and adds many synergy bonuses to other charisma based skills.
Additionally, I always saw sorcerors as "natural" diplomats, leaders, and intimidating people. In other words, their charisma modifier as it rose was their natural ability to do these things. And with their ability modifier they can frighten peasants and whatnot. Is a 6th level fighter going to be frightened of a guy in some weird leather outfit, with weird hair, and a shortspear going to be..."afraid"? Nah. Let sorcerors go ahead and pay cross-class points if they want to be good at intimidating or being diplomatic (the two "extremes" of the charisma interaction skills). I see no reason why some odd eldritch mage would be good at gathering information or performing, 2 other charisma skills you may not have thought of.
As for the cleric, well its a toss up. Personally I believe the "variants" you describe would be better served by having domains fill that niche. I think most domains should add 1 class skill to the cleric along with another small ability, or add a few class skills (like Trickery). FR really dropped the ball on this one (imo) because they kept using feats, which led to combat-based clerics even more. By restricting it to skill bonuses (and the occasional non-combat feat) you add flavor to the individual clerics without adding much power.
In fact, thats something I think the sorceror should get every 5 levels. Some kind of "inherent" bonus to a charisma skill of their choosing. Heck maybe have them gain 5 bonus ranks in a charisma skill or something. I think that is a better solution than just giving them flat-out class skills which they wont get an opportunity to utilize anyway.
3. Amount of Changes
There will undoubtedly be many many more arguements on this score, assuredly more than any other issue. Did 3.5 go too far? Did it not go far enough? I'm not sure, which to me tells me that they hit the mark they were aiming for, something in-between. Why is it not "just 4.0"? Jeezum. I should think that Wizards has learned the value of playtesters and will be employing many many groups before 4.0 comes out (which I think is at *least* 3 more years away). To say that 3.0 players should get nothing of an update inbetween the next edition seems silly to me. As people can point out, there have always been updates to the various editions, sometimes with more sweeping changes than even 3.5.
Ultimately you can't please everyone. If youre errata-filled, balance-tweaked 3.5 books don't please you for the price you paid then send them back. But please don't try and "blame" anyone for what you purchased. And not to be rude, but given some of your thoughts I doubt I would even consider buying "your 3.5" edition and I find the statement that you could do it better fairly demeaning to the design team.
Technik
) on Eric's old boards. But when I had to transfer (during one of the board transitions), the nickname stayed "taken" even though I couldn't log in through it. So I thought: "What the heck, God of Evil will do. At least its honest...."
