If you (BobtheNob) are saying that it was also the results that felt the same - as in, the results of the actions taken by the player of (say) a fighter felt the same as the results of the actions taken by the player of (say) a sorcerer - I'm intrigued. What classes were in play in your game?
If you're saying that the "sameness" wasn't in either the act of playing (ie same structure of power suites, choices etc) and wasn't in the results, can you say a bit more about where it was?
Fair questions well asked.
It was about mid paragon we noticed. By this stage everyone is at the same power "count". We have done alot of combat by this stage and are entering fights by pattern. The patterns of the players were very similar.
Now, the whole pay was phb1, we got on the 4e train fairly early. So fighter, paladin, rogue, ranger, cleric(later warlord) and wizard.
The sameness wasn't the powers themselves, there was fluff to make them distinct. But the delivery mechanism (as in the AEDU strcture) and end result of it's use became indistinct. The thing that did remain distinct was the core class and paragon features, they did keep characters recognizable. But without that you just have the AEDU, and when one player delivered and encounter that caused x damage and slowed a target, and player b used a different power that caused y damage and slowed a target(with some light variance) using the same power structure for delivery...
This was an observation of result. In all, 4e was the most successful campaign our group has ever played, and it's the robustness of 4e that helped this result.
But ultimately, some aspects left us flat. We spent a lot of time talking about the campaign once it was over and this was a common complaint from all involved.
I stress again, I'm not claiming this is what happened to others, and I'm not saying this is gospel. But the community that claims 4e can be same same...at least I can say I understand where they are coming from.