That's true, but what I think is central to this discussion is how wizards and fighters were originally both at the mercy of the DM. Wizards for spells, and fighters for magic items. (Granted, wizards were also at the DM's mercy for magic items, but I would argue that as long as they had the right spells, magic items were more a luxury than a necessity for them.) Starting in 3e, wizards gained the ability to choose at least some of their spells, and were therefore no longer dependent on the DM, whereas fighters remained so.
Here's a relevant excerpt from the 2e PHB (I can't seem to locate my 1e PHB at the moment):
PHB 2e, Chapter 7, Page 81, Learning Spells
Whatever the case, your character begins play with a spell book containing up to a few 1st level spells. Your DM will tell you the exact number of spells and which spells they are. As your character adventures, he will have the opportunity to add more spells to his collection.
When your character attains a new level, he may or may not receive new spells. This is up to your DM... How he gets his spells is one of the things your DM decides.
In all cases, before he can add a new spell to his spell book, you will have to check if your character learns that spell.
As you can see, in 2e (and earlier editions) gaining spells was handled pretty much the same way as magic items. The player had no control over what spells they found, or how many, unless the DM was feeling generous. Heck, even if the DM felt generous, you might flub your roll to learn the spell and be SOL until at least next level (when you could try again). Later editions removed those limitations for spells but not for magic items.
4e went the furthest in addressing this imbalance, by giving fighters powerful class abilities at higher levels. If you consider residuum and the optional inherent bonus rules, it effectively solved the issue. However, it's no secret that there were folks that really disliked 4e. That said, just because that implementation didn't work for them, doesn't imply that there is no such implementation that could work for them, except for those that simply hate the idea of potent fighters who aren't reliant on being given magic items by the DM.
Edit:
I will say that the one place I think that 4e fell short, in terms of fighters and magic items, was limiting the scope of magic items. Magic items in 4e could add the depth that fighters needed, allowing them to damage monsters with resistance and keeping their numbers where they ought to in order to be effective. However, they were somewhat limited in adding breadth. In other words, new and interesting abilities that enabled the fighter to do things that would otherwise be completely outside their typical purview. Unfortunately, fighter class powers were also fairly constrained in this respect, with epic destinies being the one area where the designers seemed to relax those restrictions.
