Quote Originally Posted by Arkhios View Post
That being said, I disagree. It is a benefit of the system. 3.5/PF fundamental problem is that as soon as you can buy magic items, it becomes an arms race with no end, and when you finally get to those insanely high AC/Fort/Ref/Will values, the internal balance breaks apart because basically nothing can touch you, and you and a handful of friends could destroy the world if you wanted to. It makes you wonder, if you can reach to such power levels, why haven't someone else reached there already and why does the world still exist. (That was partially sarcasm, by the way).
Come on, the simulation argument is meaningless. A game world is only there to give context to a group game and doesn't exist on its own. Not even the most hard-core sandbox gm would do that.

The problem with d20 is not items per se. It was not the worst move to anticipate items and just accept that a class should be 2/3 and items 1/3 of performance, ie. having 20 BAB and needing 10 more from items and accepting that. It just broke down when the system started to have "x2" instead of the intended "+2" items....