From a design standpoint, I have to disagree with you a bit here. AM does impose game balance limitations. Everyone plays a mage, and the mages are balanced against each other to varying degrees, even while they all outshine their cohorts. But that is the intended game design, a game world dominated by powerful wizards. Problems pop up in a game like D&D which states that class balance is an intended and desired effect and then doesn’t achieve it (the caster-melee gulf in 3e). D&Ds game design is a game world dominated by powerful heroes from all stripes, the Grey Mouser and Conan are supposed to be on equal footing here, slayers of wizards both, not their sidekicks and meat shields. The fantasy archetype of the fighting hero is that he eats wizards for lunch.

As my favorite class has always been straight up, O.G. fighting man, 3e was a low point for me in D&D. The balance in older editions is there, even if a bit skewed sometimes (wizards have about a 3% survival rate at 1st level, like turtles on the beach, in OD&D, but rise to power if the party or campaign ever reaches high levels).