i actually disagree with newer is better.
Its just that third edition is the worst. 5th edition is a close second in beeing terrible, its saving grace mostly beeing the battlemaster.
But the Boomerism argument is silly.
Maybe 3E was bad, but 3.5E was really fun. (Again, I understand why people were not in love with the quantification of everything, I appreciated the standardized structure shared between the DM and the player - we were all operating under a clear set of constraints.) That being said, I consider balance issues a separate consideration (and a fair criticism).
I mentioned it in another post, but I appreciated the level of customization 3.5E offered. Again, as a person who does not care about optimization, and am accustomed to DM’s taking the full capabilities of the party into account, I do not mind that there is the chance of creating a suboptimal PC through “bad” feat combos. In my opinion, most people in life are not “optimized”; in fact, our foibles kind of make us who we are :o)
