Currently banned in my game are:
• Expertise feats - I give them Math Expertise for free, which is +1 to attack at 5/15/25
• Double weapons - not only are they a huge source of cheese (using the "light weapon" end for rogue attacks), but most of them are downright silly, even for a fantasy game.
• Monster races - almost always used for the sake of optimization rather than flavor, and the flavor itself can create issues when interacting with NPC's.
• Half Orcs - just for this game world
• Paragon Defenses (or whatever that was called)- instead I am allowing 3 stat raises on the 4/8 levels.
• White Lotus feats - kind of broken IMHO
Things I am considering banning include Iron Armbands of Power, and Bloodclaw weapons. Maybe a couple others, like Radiant weapons. The auto-damage weapons just are too good compared to any other choices, and hence they are boring because everyone will want them.
Bloodclaw has another issue, which is that powers and items that damage oneself annoy the party's leader (a TacLord) to no end. Our group is a tad short on healing, with the taclord and a fighter/mc cleric. They do just fine, but people causing additional damage to themselves all the time would further deplete the already limited healing resources. And believe me, given one of the players, it would be *all the time*. "More damage? Sign me up! So the warlord has to heal me sooner, or we use up another potion. It's more damage! Rawr!"
I have been choosing all of the magic items myself, rather than using wish lists. I only have a wish list from one of the five players, and I don't see that as changing. The players aren't all that interested in poring over the books or Compendium and picking out goodies for themselves. Limiting the choice of items is thus very easy for me.
Recently the group picked up the Enchant Magic Item ritual, so at some point they will be making their own items. Due to a ruling in my initial house rules document, a recipe is needed to make any given item. Some require rare ingredients (good adventure fodder), while others may simply be unobtainable. Most recipes they can simply look up in the library, others may be treasure in and of themselves. It gives me more control over what items they have.
I want the characters to get and make cool magic items, but as I anticipated a year ago when we started this thing, some of them are unbalanced and we are better off without them. I'd rather disallow questionable stuff in the first place than have to take something away from a character.
Oh, and thanks for the comments on my soliloquy - thanks especially to Will Shakespeare for the original