AbdulAlhazred
Legend
I do want to emphasize I am not talking about freedom to reflavor not certain any edition except 3e tried to take that away. I was earlier giving Hussar an example of how i sometimes very much drive how I use the system to fulfill a concept exploiting the abilities
The Bloodwright is probably a better example of the freedom to build. But so is adjusting my Cleave with a feat to make it so that if he only has 1 enemy to attack he can do ongoing damage to the target. Or adjustments to make the rangers abilities more interesting to someone wanting arrows to do something other than kill fast.
A/E/D/U and the general way powers work (and feats too really), plus the very spelled out structure of keywords and how things can build off that, is 4e's great strength here. Lets be clear, I am all in favor of the way 4e does it in the sense that it WORKS. It is just putting a large burden on a lot of casual players to engage with that. Excepting, partially, things like the Slayer there's no getting around working on your build. Heck, I would argue that the simplified e-classes actually made it HARDER in the long run (sure, creating a level 1 Slayer is easy, but just try to make an EFFECTIVE level 15 Slayer, not so easy...).