This is one of the reasons I'm looking forward to the "bounded accuracy" of Next. The window of levels during which monsters pose a threat to player characters should be much wider. And it makes throwing that many more of them at the party so much fun.
It's true that there are plenty of ways for PCs to gain ground on initiative, but what I'm highlighting is that (a) these character-building choices (even where slotted items are used, such as the Casque of Tactics) displace other choices and (b) they don't grant most PCs an advantage, but merely reduce an increasing disadvantage. These details are what make those choices similar to a "feat tax."
For what it's worth, I agree that initiative is a dramatically important part of combat, but mostly for positioning. Defenders who roll poorly for initiative often have difficulty positioning themselves properly to fulfill their role. Ditto for controllers.
If this is a real design goal, it would be the only instance in 4e where this occurred (at least that I can think of). And, if it were the case, it should probably apply to monsters as well. Monsters generally just gain advantages as they go up in level. While it's true that some vulnerabilities scale up with level, (a) it's a relatively rare issue for monsters, whereas the initiative issue applies to the vast majority of PCs; (b)the vulnerability may or may be relevant in any given combat, while initiative will be an issue in ever fight; and (c) vulnerabilities do not scale consistently (as the notion you suggest would require them): reviewing a handful of epic tier monsters with a vulnerability, only the undead are consistently vulnerable 15, others are often only vulnerable 10, similar to many paragon tier monsters with vulnerabilities.
Indeed. Every epic character should take Superior Initiative (unless they have a high enough initiative from party-wide bonuses like warlords and items to negate the need)
Or for strikers, so they can kill a target before it goes. Or leaders, so they can give bonuses to the group or enable attacks when they help most.
I agree that everyone benefits from winning initiative, but I think that losing it sometimes often it more difficult to actually do what you're supposed to do. If a striker loses initiative, they can usually still do a lot of damage to an enemy. A leader can still buff and heal pretty effectively if s/he loses initiative. If a fighter, for example, is movement impaired before s/he can engage the lurker or artillery or skirmisher, they are gonna have trouble locking them down. And if the enemy spreads out so that the wizard can't target more than one or two at once, again, that's a serious problem for a controller.
If one side is given full domination of the first round, I think the combat starts out as troublesome too easily (which is excellent to jump right into the "OMG we're losing, start popping dailies, part of the fight). I was partial to making monsters all go on the same initiative count during a play by post. It translated to "some players go, monsters go, then players go..." It worked well, but doesn't really address the issue highlighted in the OP.
