Maybe at the end of a magazine you could have "Putting It All Together" where you take some character options listed earlier and make an appealing character with them...
I love this idea. I love this idea even beyond using it for character options -- use it for characters, game world, anything where all of the articles (or most) are tied together. Let this take the place of the 12 wasted (IMHO) pages of single-page char class articles. Seriously, you can't DO enough in one page to make it worth the ink. DUMP those PLEASE, I don't even bother to look at them any more (& I kept giving them a chance for several issues).
April's issue was the first in a long time I've really liked (like, since the change in the font used for the front lettering). Partly this was because it had one article long enough that it almost seemed like a themed issue -- I like themed issues, because they let one idea be actually developed instead of just 'ok, here's something cool for y...' & that's it. The article on the Far Realm had information on using it in a campaign, a PrC, monsters, spells, & a few magic items (& few was good by me, since I'm not big on magic item articles). I also liked that April's issue did NOT have Silicon Sorcery (ugh) or a minis article -- now just send First Watch & Class Acts chasing after those into File 13.
My favorite Dragons were 310-322 -- lots of themed issues. Even if I didn't like the particular theme of one issue, I knew I'd be able to get one or two things out of the non-theme articles, & the loads of stuff in the issues with themes I liked more than made up the difference in terms of value per subscription dollar.