Zardnaar
Legend
Given that the main author of 2e was Zeb Cook, that doesn't really hold water. The game was developed by some very experienced people. However, they had a mandate to retain a large amount of numerical compatibility with existing (1e) source material. So this put some pretty serious limits on what they could tinker with (for example all the to-hit numbers map exactly to the 1e attack tables, with a couple of minor quirks). Likewise all existing spells had to be supported, etc. although they were able to get away with dropping most of what was in later 1e supplements, and some races/classes that were deemed 'too evil' or just marginal/weird.
The 2e Bard was a pretty nice option, but their spell casting has several restrictions. It cannot be done while wearing any armor (so you are stuck with a bad AC and thus your fighting ability becomes pretty much worthless (well, it was not great to start with, but still...). Also your casting is MUCH more restricted on an equal level basis, and even on an equal XP basis. For example: a level 9 bard at 110k XP can cast 3rd level spells, but a level 8 wizard at 135k XP can cast 4th level spells (and more of them). Bards don't get a spell per level, they don't get to pick any level 1 spells, etc. While all this may or may not be a severe restriction, the fact is that the unarmored spell-casting bard can't really do much in combat, has MUCH less thief skills than a 'real' thief, and because he is a rogue his advancement is not based on using magic. Whether he even gets XP for spell casting at all is an open question! In his favor he does get some bard abilities, which can be very handy, in some situations.
Frankly I think you just didn't perhaps read the bard that carefully?
I mean, I have beefs with 2e myself. I didn't think it was a very significant update in terms of fixing real problems with 1e, and yet it did manage to eliminate a lot of the best parts of 1e, though many people who just picked up the books and assumed that it was 'tweaked 1e' probably didn't notice things like the loss of ALL the exploration rules.
The counter argument was at levels play at the bard was just as good as the wizard and had a higher caster level and bard abilities on top of that.
If they run out of spells they can still don armor and weapons and use wands iirc.
Throw in D6 hit dice and saving throws that scaled with level and yeah they were very competitive with wizards most of level 1-10.
They do fall behind slightly above that but not by much.
2E bard was good imho just got a bad rap because reasons. Artwork didn't help.