Quote Originally Posted by tuggyne View Post
I disagree on two points; first, I don't think intention matters in whether something is balanced or not
Wrong emphasis and definition. Not "this is intended to be balanced", but "it is intentional for this to be weaker than that (when 'this' is in fact weaker than 'that') in an arena". In short, balance as careful and clear design. 3.5 isn't balanced because what the designers where trying to do, and what they ended up doing, are almost at opposites from each other.

And, as I previously stated, perfect costing is not only extremely difficult, it's not very fun for players who enjoy optimizing.
Given some of the crap optimizers pull and how hostile most of them are, it's a very hard sell to say that it's bad if the game is not fun for optimizers.