Why is Gargoyle's level adjustment so high?

[Gnarnia]

Am I missing something, or does it seem inexplicably high to anyone else?

Gargoyle SRD entry (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/gargoyle.htm)

It looks weaker than a lot of +4 LA creatures that don't need to waste any hit dice on racial levels (Half dragon, Half Fiend, Half Celestial, Pixie, etc).

[The Glyphstone]

Half-Celestial and Half-Fiend are terrible, unless you use the alternate reading that they count character level hit dice towards their abilities. Half-Dragon is mediocre, but not awful. Pixie is famously powerful for its LA.

Gargoyle has natural non-magical flight, like the Pixie, and pretty good physical stat adjustments on top of 4 Monstrous Humanoid Hit Dice (which, with full BAB, are also good for melee) - a gargoyle archer would be a very dangerous opponent. Still less powerful than a character with LA+0 and 9 character levels though. I'd peg it at +4 myself, or maybe +3 - 2 for flight, 1 or 2 for the high stat boosts.

[SciChronic]

also because those races were designed for monsters, which should die to a PC of equal CR

[Phelix-Mu]

A combo of the melee fallacy and early misunderstandings of racial HD+LA calculations v character power levels pretty much covers it. Gargoyles can be a mess in melee; quick movement, a bunch of natural attacks, and good BAB from the racial HD. Sounds good.

But then you stack it against what an equipped character can pull off, and it really doesn't shine. Add in the fact that melee is a very dangerous place to spend an entire career, as opposed to a single encounter for a melee bruiser monster the pcs must fight, and the whole thing is generally ill-advised.

I'll ditto The Glyphstone; the gargoyle is not totally worthless, just overpriced. Some niche stuff might be pretty sweet with it, but just not up to snuff in the average campaign. A low-op game at a certain level might still work, though, especially if the other players are also going with funky races/monsters with high ECLs.

[Crake]

Little known fact: Book of Exalted Deeds actually introduced a variable level adjustment for the half celestial ranging from +2 to +7, based on the racial HD of the base creature.