Doing my usual whinging. “I love 3.5e, but why can’t it be more like 5e? I love 5e, but why can’t it be more like 3.5e? And there are some good ideas in 4e. And…”
I’m never satisfied by RAW. I’m a collector, not a player, and a syncretist at heart.
My latest gripe was finding out that the Expanded Psionics Handbook (3.5e) ditched the 0-level talents from the Psionics Handbook (3.0e). There were a lot of problems with the PsH, starting with the multiple ability requirements for each type of psionics (fixed in the XPH by making it ability by class, instead… and only allowing psions to specialize in one type of psionics 
). But, dagnabbit, I LIKE 0-level powers for the different classes.
If I had my way, I’d go through the talents in 3.0e, see where they are in 3.5e, and on a case by case basis move them back (adjusting the strength as needed). Then figure out the progression for known and slots.
Anyway, that’s just one of my quibbles and how I would handle it.
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Something that I’ve been wondering about. I recall that (I think it was in the Unearthed Arcana book, but it might have been elsewhere too) there was an optional rule to customize classes by giving the option of taking alternate class features.
For instance (specialist wizard variants from UA p 59), an abjurer (semi relevant to preservers, whose Path Dexter favors abjuration and divination) may give up the ability to summon a familiar (something that likely increases suspicion of using arcane magic) to grant themselves or one other creature an hour of limited protection against one of the five energy types (5 + 1/2 of abjurer level). (Don’t know if the energy type is chosen at level 1 or per cast. Does not stack with spells such as resist elements.)
My first class that I would expect to have alternate class features would be the bard, simply because there HAS to be a reason that bard troupes aren’t massacred upon knocking on anyone’s door. There must be alternates to all the poison skills, though what they might be, I lack the creativity to think of them.
Similarly, Dark Sun 2e fighters were tactical geniuses, but I don’t see much of that in 3.5e. 4th level and 6th level, they gained basic military engineering. 7th level, they gained the ability to lead large (700+) groups of (probably someone else’s) troops. And 10th level, they attract their own troops. At the very least, there should be an alternate path that creates a commander (almost a warlord…) vs a master of armed combat.
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