Lame Poll. Wheres the option for "the game is sufficiently balanced as is, and if you notice something that disturbing balancewise, you and your dm are doing it wrong"
A 1st level wizard can't hold a candle to a 1st level fighter, either one to one or against encounters.
At 11th level, the wizard is just begining to gain some power with 3 fifth level spells, a few fourths and some fireballs. While the fighter at the same level has 3 attacks a ton of feats and 3 times the hitpoints. Put two average build wizards and fighters against some strong monsters and the wizard will have to run if he doesnt have anyone protecting him, but then again if he goes nova he might do better, if he has remembered the right spells for the job. Also if we are judging the game by amount of time playing (e.g. the spotlight), the fighter gets three attacks for every one time the wizard does, he easily occupies twice the amount of game time, not to mention wizards having to conserve spells, memorizing the wrong spell, and failing concentration checks due to smart DMs. Overall its inconclusive whose better at 10th, unless that is someone has run some tests to show some huge difference?
At 20th level, the wizards has some pretty crazy spells, sure the fighters a beast with 4 attacks and god knows how many hitpoints, but the wizards power quickly grows after 14th level. But then again who actually plays in this level area anyways? Most campaigns lose there steam around here, and many modules end at around 15th level. The system pretty much admits it breaks down at this level AND polls show a HUUUGE amount of players never make it this high.
So, whats the problem again? Is it optimized gotcha characters made by people trying to "win" at a game you can't "win", is it bad DMs who don't know many monsters target big flashing wizards?
WOTC tried equal at all levels with 4e and we wound up playing a game with only one class. Actually many of us stopped playing it if you hadn't noticed and we werent "angry wizard players", we were players of all classes who were not interested in an RPG with only one type of character. Some people liked that and thats fine, but many D&D players like a range of power in a range of situations, over different levels, its whats needed to make classes soo amazingly DIFFERENT from eachother.
I think traditional D&D (e.g D&D, AD&D and 3e) could be made better by adding a vancian/4e style fighter to the core, something like Montes Ritual Warrior, or Iron heroes. But the regular fighter with mostly at wills is something MANY players love playing, and it shouldnt be removed because some char optimizers who spend more time on forums then playing the game.