As far as 4.0 being worse, it was. It wasn't worse because of spellcasters, though. WotC actually managed to dumb spellcasters down, along with everyone else. All classes were basically cookie cutters with two or three slight variants that were essentially fluff and very little game mechanics. Spellcasters dealt as much damage as a fighter, but were weaker. It was just plain silliness.<br/><br/>All classes had At Will powers/abilities/skills, Encounter powers, and Daily. A Wizard's spells in the end were more or less no different than a Fighter's abilities. Magic could still do things a Fighter couldn't, but it was so insignificant, it was boring and stupid.<br/><br/>There was no diversity among any of the classes. What little they had to make them different was so small as to not matter. 4.0 was basically the 12 years hack and slash wet dream of RPG's. People get totally crazy when its put like that, but its the honest truth. 4.0 had no weight. It was a hallow shell that couldn't handle a sophisticated combat. It devolved into a character just spamming At Will's and nothing but combat with fake feeling RP (related to classes/fluff mechanics).<br/><br/>People cling dearly to the "fact" that 4.0 was just as fluff and RP friendly as 3.5, but the fact is the system was so pigeon holed that everything felt absurdly arbitrary and so alike, that anyone with a fertile imagination would eventually get stifled by the lackluster unimaginativeness involved in its creation.<br/><br/>It also felt really strangely like a video game. The way the mechanics worked, especially the at will, encounter, and daily powers functioned, made it feel like I was just playing a cheap D&D game on the console or computer.<br/><br/>Now there were some interesting concepts and or mechanics, like saving throws being an AC to beat instead of the player having to beat a DC.<br/><br/>The whole reason 4.0 failed so miserably was because it lacked the diversity that 3.5 has in abundance. Regardless of Spellcasters ruling supreme, there is still a crap ton of material for none-spell casting classes to utilize. The fluff/RP has meat. There is just as much RP material, if not more, than there are mechanics.