
Totally agree that RP is about making any type of team concept work. However, when I can make a PC that does the fighter's job and the rogue's job and the ranger's job, what does that leave for the other 3-6 people at the table to do? Heal and cast sells. But other people like to melee. And melee is by far the most boring part of 3e. That is why Bo9S was so cool.
There is too much overlap in 3e. I loved multiclassing in 3e and I can make swiss army characters. And all of us ended up stepping on each others toes in the earlier years. We are all friends and worked around it and loved playing 3e, but there are flaws in the rules. We just house ruled and avoided them.
I'm old school, started AD&D when I was a kid and have been playing DnD ever since (but I still played some EQ, WoW, DAoC, AC, and other MMOs) and I don't think DnD should be a MMO, but it does need to learn from what works. And having strong classes is one thing that works. IMO Swiss Army characters are bad for co-op games. If you want to be Super Bad and do everything well, that is not "role" playing. Anyway, you can still gestalt with 4e.