I don't think paladins and rangers should cast spells; rangers should have something like herb use, and paladins more stuff in the vein of lay on hands and smiting. Casting spells doesn't fit the archetype of a holy knight, nor a wilderness savvy warrior, IMO. The 3E assassin represents, to me, yet another lazy design step down this path. Assassins should have ninja-like special abilities, sure - casting spells, no.
Bards should have their jack-of-all-trades stereotype shed, and be given the power and respect that celtic mythology has as their due. They are not mere minstrels with some dabbling in the arcane and roguery, as the 2E and 3E designers seem to have believed. They shouldn't be just "face men" with a few other abilities to throw around, but as powerful and legendary as they were in 1E. Borrowing from druidic spellpower and loremaster lore abilities (since when can a mere diviner out-lore a bard???) would be a good start in correcting this, and divorcing the bard's magic from the standard magic system would be an excellent step in redefining them as a unique class in their own right rather than an "also-ran".
I'd also go into how the druid should not be a furry factory as it is of 3.5 (spontaneous summon furries, have a furry companion and turn into a furry), but I begin to despair that the designer's conception of a druid is so irretrievably computer game-esque that there's little common ground left between my vision of the druid and theirs. Again, fixes I'd suggest include spontaneous healing (instead of spontaneous furry summons) ala the cleric to make the druid much more useful in the dungeon and take some load off the cleric (doesn't get much more natural than healing), and divorcing the druid's power level from the assumption that they'll have a fighting animal companion, which is just plain presumptuous and potentially inconvenient (instead use magic item building rules to get an animal companion if one is wanted).
