@ Dannager: Thank you for taking my post, chopping it up and serving it outta context to enhance your own side of the argument. I statted that it had been a while and that I did not still recall the exact details of the games I have played. Further more, while some of it was exaggeration, I did have at least 4 at wills all of which had a stronger effect then the mage in the group's encounter and daily powers. You said the pally was a defender style, I would expect a defender's abilities to be defense oriented, but he 1 shotted one of the major enemies we had in the game with an at will. Fluke? maybe, don't really remember details except the DM frowning and saying congrats, and removing the piece.
As for the group I played with, maybe they were. Only 1 guy had looked seriously at 4e, the one who decided to give the 1/2 hour lecture on how basic attacks were pointless and at wills rocked.
I was using "fireball" as an iconic reference, no one in the group threw a ball of exploding fire anywhere, but we all had effects that had a similar effect on the state of the battle (except the mage)
As for spell casting of a paladin, here let me grab my PF books. we have spell levels 1-4, 15 spells in level 1, 5 of which are 0 for anyone else who has them, 9 in level 2, 10 in level 3 and 9 in level 4. Lets now look at spells per day. at level 20, the paladin gets 4 at 1st, 4 at 2nd, 3 at 3rd, and 3 at 4th. Yes there are bonus for High Cha, but compare to even bard and Inquisitor spell lists. As for actual spells, lets see, cure light, mod and serious, bless, dispel chaos, holy weapon, get the trend? A pally has the worst casting for offensive spells of any caster (ranger at least gets SNA) their "healing spells" are worthless next to lay on hands, you cant even justify the the cures harm undead cause lay on hands does too. Unless I am missing something, a pally built to cast spells as any kinda focus is kinda in trouble. They do have buffs for weapon use, they are a fighter +divine powers, not through spells so much as through the lay on hands and divine bond. Not digging out my 3.5 books, But I know there were even variant pally that didn't cast anything at all.
Side note, powers may not be spells, but should a person able to warp reality do less effect then a loser with a sword and board. Maybe the mage rolled bad and I did awesome, I do not remember the exact details, just talking with the guy later and comparing our powers and finding he kinda failed at doing anything constructive in combat. If you were worried about the power level between a fighter and a wizard, 4E certainly changed the playing level between them in my experience.
I really can not say if the characters were built wrong, as all the groups characters were pregens that after about 4 games I stopped going to and tossed, so no I did not just try it once, I even tried it with a second group a month later and it still sucked IMO.
If what I said about my experience did not sound fun, maybe, and this is only a wild guess mind you, but just maybe, IT WASN'T but that is my experience with it