Don't get me wrong. A lot of these ideas are thematically very cool and could be fun.

It just seems like it's increasingly easier with each passing day to make serious build mistakes when developing a character. It almost feels like characters are being tunneled down fewer and fewer valid paths. There are hundreds of choices, but only a few seem worthwhile with prestige classes representing far superior versions of so many potential playstyles and archetypes. It's a dangerous and scary task to build a DDO character.

Remember what it says in the Dungeon Master's Guide about prestige classes? When designing one, make sure that each level of a prestige class represents a difficult choice for the player considering taking it.

Wouldn't it better serve the game if the choices players were given were mostly valid, rather than an ample portion of them being disastrous traps?