Is there a way to get someone to power-up their character?

[Dr.Epic]

Inspired by another thread on this board.

I was thinking back to my last campaign. The problem was that we had one character (fighter/barbarian gestalt) that was simply badly built. When confronted with CR-appropriate encounters, he couldn't hit them unless he rolled a 20. Took Toughness for as many of his feat choices as he could. Needless to say he started feeling useless. I thought about dropping appropriate loot, but with a party with 3 heavy hitters that's kind of difficult.

Wow! How do you make a fighter/barb gestalt that doesn't slaughter everything? Toughness as every feat? Really? I only use that feat on NPCs I don't want killing all the PCs. Yeah, tell them to ditch the 3 HP upgrades. Weapon focus, weapon specialization, greater of the two former, extended rage, extra rage, monkey grip. All those are good, but the three every barbarian and fighter built like a tank should have are power attack, cleave, great cleave.