Paladins, How to fix/are fixes needed

[Morty]

For my money, the easiest fix for paladins is to make it a class that can only be earned in game a la prestige class. And you can't have paladin levels before the game starts. Why? Because it forces the DM and the player to communicate their expectations of the class and how to make them work.

Making paladins actually elite, as opposed to a class like any other, would indeed probably solve a great deal of the problem.