Personally ericgrau, I don't think homebrewing is about balance, it's about fun. You sometimes have to change things to suit the game and even your own tastes. A class can be good in concept, but in practice it could suck big time. Take my example for instance: The sorcerer is a very nice in theory, but in practice it's really just a weaker version of the wizard.

And besides, balance is completely subjective to a situation. There are those who say druids are HORRIBLY balanced, which they sort of are. Some say that fighters are perfectly balanced (don't know, never played one).

And what you said about the developers being spot on? Remember Complete Psionic? Yeah. Sucked.