I won't argue your other points, but...
"Or character variation." - Fighters, again, have less mechanical options, most of which any character can do. If you want a character that plays different, you're not going to want a pick a fighter.
Just because any character can be a Soldier or Outlander or whatever doesn't mean picking a Background or atypical skill or feat doesn't make your Fighter any less differentiated /from other fighters/. Within the class itself, you can fairly seamlessly choose DEX vs STR as your primary combat stat and ranged vs melee as your preferred combat focus, that's actually been kinda a long time coming for the fighter, and it's nothing to sneeze at. Then you've got combat styles, and two out of three archetypes with a little something to do in addition to attacking every round. Spell/maneuver choice can further differentiate EKs/Battlemasters, as well. It's not nearly as customizeable as the 3.x fighter was, but it's a bit more viable to make up for it.
YOUR PC IS NOT SOLELY DEFINED BY HIS OR HER DEFINED ABILITIES OR POWERS
Bold & all caps won't actually make that more relevant. Sure, your PC with few abilities is not solely defined by those abilities. Similarly, another PC with many more abilities is not solely defined by has long list of kewl stuff. You're both defined by how you play them and what you accomplish with the tools you've got. He's just got more tools to start with. That's all.
If you want to start houseruling more martial things that the fighter can do that aren't actually in the rules, more power to you. If you use the rules as written and intended, fighters have less options. It's not even a matter of debate, as you started trying to split hairs with another poster about how complex more options actually was.
From what I can gather, you are the only person in this thread referencing custom rules.
5e's basic resolution system is nothing more nor less than: player describes action, DM describes results. So there's no house rule required to say "I pick up the halfling holding the pike and throw him point-first at the ogre." (Well, the pike would be house-ruled if a halfling's wielding it, but that's not the point - npi, dammit, npi.) It's just up to the DM to rule what happens. He can say "the pike runs the ogre through and the confused halfing is left sitting on his chest" or "the ogre yells 'fore!' and hits the flailing halfling with his greatclub, sending him flying off the bridge and into the Gorge of Eternal Peril" or "Roll to hit - with advantage for such an audacious move!" or "Roll to hit, with disadvantage because halflings are poorly-balanced for throwing" or "fine, Colossus, make a strength check..."
Of course, that should also illustrate why having a selection neatly-defined option can be kinda nice...
I disagree. The complexity is not significantly different.
Complexity is the price you pay for more options and greater flexibility, not the goal, itself. The battlemaster does pay a price in complexity, and neo-Vancian casters do pay a higher price. Whether you consider the difference between choosing 3 maneuvers once at 3rd level & 3 more later, 'significantly' less complex than prepping 3 spells at first level and more each and every level, with new spells opening up every other level, is, of course, a matter of opinion, but the difference in complexity is inescapable - choosing 6 from a list of 17 over 20 levels and possibly revising one of those choices at each level, is simply less complexity than choosing 25 or so, from a list of hundreds, over 20 levels, and revising that choice every adventuring 'day.' That's 4x as many choices, from about 20x the number of alternatives, revised approximately 13x as often, for, very roughly & conservatively (leaving out gating by level, or wizards learning spells, for instance), 1000x the decision points.
1000x as much of something is simply not 'significant' in your opinion.
You're entitled to that opinion.
Of course, that's indicative not just of the price paid in complexity, but of the flexibility and versatility that complexity buys. The Battlemaster starts out with nothing more than the Champion in that sense, gains 3 maneuvers at 3rd level, presumably the 'best' 3 of the 17 available for his 'build' or concept, then uses those same three maneuvers heavily for the rest of his career. The player becomes very familiar with them and when best to use them, making it simpler (in the sense of easy more than the sense of absolute complexity) to play the character as time goes on. A caster, OTOH, is always opening up new spells and new spell-levels and can completely change the spells he has available to use each morning, giving him much more versatility - he can simply choose not to vary his spell load much, and become familiar with the spells he prepares, though he gains another every level, so even a willfully-simple approach is more complex and versatile than the Battlemaster.
The point that the non-casting Fighter, especially the Champion, but even the Battlemaster, is presented as a simple, arguably the simplest, character alternative in the PH. In the 5e design philosophy, that's one of the class's strengths, and it accomplishes the goal of making the game more accessible to new players who need a 'training-wheels' class and who come to the game wanting (or at least willing) to play a character concept the fighter can handle.
You don't have to argue the fighter is something it isn't to defend it. It stands on it's own merits: high DPR, reasonable toughness and 'training wheels' simplicity.
no, we do outside the box stuff based on the situation, but that is equal to the whole player base, the most common things we do are those things on our character sheet though, and as such the more of a caster you are the more options you have (you don't loose any ability to improvise by getting those character sheet choices).
But, you do 'lose' the opportunity - the need - to improvise by having more & better options. If you have 11 prepared spells that range from utility to single-target guaranteed damage to blasting to buffing to single-target control to battlefield control, plus a couple of direct-damage cantrips for rounds when there's nothing much that needs doing, you're rarely going to be without a good option. When you are, you might improvise an 'off label' use of one of those spells or some 'outside the box' action based on the situation and the environment, instead of 'plinking' with a sub-optimal cantrip. If you have 3 maneuvers, each strictly combat-oriented, single-target-DPR, with a rider, you'll more often find yourself in situations where none of those maneuver apply, and thus have more 'opportunities' to resort to improvising something 'out side box' based on the situations & environment, instead of just pressing your high-DPR multi-attacking.
but we have high fantasy examples of both, can't the non magic casters get a few high fantasy options?
That's another issue from fighter suckage, entirely. Casters don't just get the kind of high-fantasy 'options' that casters in genre do. Virtually any supernatural ability ever displayed in fantasy fiction or pop-culture fantasy & sci-fi is represented by a D&D spell, and each caster class has access to a lot of those spells, which work prettymuch automatically every time (no checks to cast successfully or backlash or timing requirments, just expend the slot and the spell happens, damage inflicted, saves forced, effects created &c). It's not that fighters can't do the things non-casters do in genre - they have mechanics to model the basics (defeating enemies in combat using a weapon, however it's done, is modeled in D&D by attacking and inflicting damage), be visualized as doing more, and can improvise to fill in the gaps, depending upon how the DM rules - it's that (neo-)Vancian casters do a lot more than corresponding character types in genre generally display (Sorcerers get closer to the standards set by genre, though).
is there any of those things that a fighter gets options of that the ranger, or wizard or cleric doesn't... no of course not...
After 3rd, the battlemaster gets maneuvers that those classes can't precisely duplicate (though I suppose you could 'fake' a battlemaster maneuver by improvising), and, after 5th, can do 2 such maneuvers in one round, while only the ranger gets an extra attack. The EK, starting at 3rd, can cast spells that only the wizard, of the classes from that list, can.
what if we want to keep the champion as an option but also have a class/subclass more for me and mine...
The Battlemaster and EK take that about as far as it can be. Want more fightery options than the EK, you need another class. Otherwise you'd have to have a sub-class that re-writes the base class (which is equivalent to just creating a new class), /and/ you'd be adding a land-mine of complexity to the edition's new/casual- player, 'training wheels' class.
