Well, that's nice and all, but it won't fall as crisply in line with the class design they've proposed to justify giving the Paladin a stand-alone class. What you're describing is one of the following:
1.) A Fighter with a religious Background and a Divine specialty
2.) A Fighter with a bunch of unbalanced extras bolted on (AD&D silliness)
3.) A terrible excuse for a multi-class Cleric-Fighter
The shtick that justifies the Paladin not being subsumed into the spectrum of Fighter-build, Fighter/Cleric, War-cleric build is that his core identity is driven off a unique mechanic of faith manifest from a code and he gets to Smite. Take that away to pirate the Expertise system and you've got a Paladin that's nothing but class-bloat.
- Marty Lund
No, what I'm proposing is a Paladin. Plain and simple. It may not be the way you envision a Paladin, but it is a Paladin. And I didn't say anything about "taking away Smite"...
A Paladin class with access to expertise dice would easily fulfill what I and a lot of other people see as a Paladin, without any "silliness".
This game needs to be many things to many people. As soon as people stop trying to define D&D by only their own desires and conceptions, then those people will stop being so angst ridden over everything they don't like with D&D Next, and start focusing on what they do like. If D&D Next ends up conceding to a small vocal minority, as it seems many in these threads continue to advocate, then it will be a fail right out of the gate.
The Paramount goal of D&D Next is to bring D&D players of multiple editions back to current D&D. It can't do that if people are unwilling to let in mechanics that support multiple concepts, rather than only supporting the concepts that they prefer.
Instead of pointing out why things won't work, or staking out little teritories and niches and trying to defend them for the next edition, perhaps try figuring out how to make it work so everybody will enjoy it.
(And people should be careful what they call "silliness" or "terrible" as pertains to a subjective hobby. One persons "silliness" is another persons
raison d'etre. It helps to say "I think it's silly, YMMV." It seems like a small thing, but it reaps huge rewards in good will and continuing constructive conversations. We all need to get along, and we all need to put in the effort to get along...)
-Mark "El Mahdi" Armstrong