I don’t believe balancing combat power is as important as most seem to think. The more similar to D&D games are, in that there’s depth beyond hit points and xp, the more variety is possible without things becoming unmanageable. My fondest memories of D&D are of experiences that were not directly tied to combat powers, like falling in a pit or busting friends out of jail. Balancing sheer power is tantamount in linear gameplay. In lateral gameplay, there’s more room for nuance and a wider variety of skills.

But I have to admit, sometimes I wonder if what I’m really hoping for is an MMO or a single-player game.

I agree on polarized characters—it’s kind of funny that you used that particular example, as my current Sorcerer has an 18 Charisma and an 8 Strength. Weaknesses can be as much a part of customizing a character as strength. I do miss having a merit & flaw system in D&D for that reason, although you can work many such types of things into character background if you have an accommodating DM.

I can understand why online games tend to allow much less customizability than tabletop—you don’t have one GM per four or five players to handle balance issues, so you need to keep things simple in order to make it easier to balance the game. As it is games have a ton of difficulties with balance—additional customization would add to that exponentially. Still, I hope they gradually manage it. I get the impression City of Heroes/Villains caters to that desire quite a bit with the ability to customize your character’s costume and such right up front (in other words they solve the problem by giving you something to customize that doesn’t affect game balance); I’m looking forward to playing with that.

There are a number of D&D features I wish video games would adapt more often. One feature is how the classes are so vastly different from one another. Wizards and sorcerers are both spellcasters, but they’re like night and day. The personalization of spells and skills is another awesome feature. Making clerics choose domains is an inspired idea.

I like to make polarized characters, like the sorcerer with 18 Charisma but 8 Constitution. Some classes are harder to do that with than others, but I don’t mind them offering such varied gameplay experiences.

More customization and personalization is always a good thing, as I see it. Customization and dynamics are the key ingredients of any game I would invent.

I find it interesting that tabletop games appeal equally to folks at both ends of the spectrum—those who absolutely love the bookkeeping aspects, and those who hate it. It’s nice that we can now choose between Sorcerers and Wizards to reflect those two styles. I’m more than happy to lose some of the versatility Wizards have in order to play the way I most enjoy.