OK, back to my descriptions.

In play, 2e vs 3e

Both run the gamut, from characters who cast different spells every round, to ones who have tried and true methods. IME, 3e promotes less variety, with abilities like "searing spell" that say "yes, your fire can burn things that are immune to fire" (or things that let you mind control, sneak attack, whatever, despite your target normally being "immune"), so you don't have to be more than a 1-trick pony. 3e also has a common PO optimal tactic of "know foe's weak save, cast SoD/SoL targeting that save"; 2e has much more variety of PO tactics. 2e Wild Magic also produces much more variety than its 3e counterpart.

2e loses to 3e in terms of the casters' turns being samey because of the caster spending a lot more time doing nothing, from being unable to cast by taking damage or running out of spells, or from psions failing their rolls to activate their powers.

I would expect 2e to also lose of the variety front because of custom spells - if you've made "kami's lacquer prison", you're gonna want to use it, and spread your fame. Curiously, that's not what i saw in play - Wizards would still cast plenty of fireballs and flight spells, *or* research plenty of different spells.

Maybe later I'll compare, say, D&D to WoD Mage.