Segway away from topic...
From a personal point of view I try to think less about what WotC says (since for better or worse they released the rules to the community) and instead I try to consider what is reasonable. I can still remember when our first counters of the frost and fire giants came out, and we made a conscious decision to ignore the face/reach of the SRD. A 5x5 fire giant just didnt seem reasonable. Some people went so far as to mock, laugh, and jeer at us. Some told us we were stupid to not know the rules, and some said they'd never buy our product because we obviously knew so little about the game.
It was very disheartening, but we felt in the end we were right. Some of the counters we actually changed, squishing large monsters into tiny squares. Then of course 3.5 came out and low and behold, what was "wrong" was now "right" and what we had "corrected" was now "wrong". I think it was then I decided we were always going to, solicit input from the community (this forum is like one great big expert system after all), consider what is reasonable, and go with what we felt was right in the end.
End segway, begin disclaimer.
I do not really want to get into a discussion about balance and power of the classes, beyond to rationalize my own thoughts related to this specific thread.
As a guy who has played druids and druid combinations, even as written, up into the epic levels, I personally feel they were historically weak. Intuitively, IF the cleric were balanced the druid feels like it comes up short. No domain spells, no domain ability, no spontaneous casting, no heavy armor, no metal armor, small selection of weapon options, fewer offensive spells (call lightning being only useable IMC above ground). On the positive side they had an animal companion. To be sure they have special abilities like pass without a trace, but it seems greatly devalued if you insist on tromping around with a bunch of adventurers who cant mimic your talent. Woodland stride is certainly useful, but less so in campaigns that dont spend a significant portion of their time actually trekking around the great outdoors. A thousand faces and resistance to fey seem limited as well (Is fey the most sparse creature group, or do I just not own enough monster books?). I cant argue that the immunity to poison is powerful. The new edition ramped up the power of the druid significantly too. Spontaneous animal summoning and a more powerful link between companion and druid.
When my fellow DM and I began looking at the Druid for an upcoming product we came across the feats, and we just had to ask ourselves why. We assumed perhaps that they were merely forgotten when MotW was done. Im glad that the mind influencing came out in this thread. It certainly helps me understand why beast was a prereq for vermin (in 3.0), and it ensures that I will have to give more thought to how strongly I feel about my rationale for making Wildshape Vermin a feat with fewer and lower prerequisites.
