It was actually mostly because it made me consider the usually-ignored aspect of the Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard duality when the Fighters also have extra stuff -- that works out when you're at 20th level, less so at 1st level.
But yes, the massive list of fixes and buffs to martial classes was intended to make people not play martial classes. After all, the entire party is composed of casters, right?
Incidentally, the single thing that concerned me more than anything else about that character was the at-will Charm Person in addition to a laundry list of other benefits. Which is, incidentally, Harbinger, exactly the sort of derailing mechanism that you were complaining about. That, and the wizards you're complaining about? Nobody is playing a wizard.
Christ, the ability score bonus is there because some people don't want to abuse templates but also don't want to be irrelevant. Notice that I didn't say a word about templates until this came up. If you are unhappy that I'm trying to keep a relatively high-power campaign fun for all of the players in the party, that's your opinion, and that's also too bad. I'm really trying to not be a jackass about this, but seriously? I could have just done what every other campaign recently launched here is doing and disallowed all LA, restricted everyone to core material, &c. I suppose that would have been the easy way out, and maybe in retrospect I should have if people are going to start complaining the moment I apply Rule 0 for a legitimate concern.
Or maybe you're just an argumentative dick. That works for me, seven players will be easier to manage, especially if one of them isn't going to be starting fights with other people in OOC. I'm not going to complain overmuch about nixing an all-rollplay no-roleplay character.