Mirrorrorrim
Hero
Interesting perspective. The 4E powers system allowed the Warlord to carve a niche because EVERYTHING was a niche. The Powers were essentially their own class subsytems.Indeed. It's like Eberron. Eberron was brand new in 3e, and precisely tailored to fit the edition like a glove. But it was so precisely tailored that as new editions have rolled out, with new mechanics and new features, Eberron is torn between having to revise large parts of the setting and introducing a long list of ill-fitting legacy elements to preserve the lore.
The Warlord was, for the most part, brand new to 4e and precisely tailored to the mechanics of the edition. Which meant it fit them very well and thrived under those conditions. But 5e is mechanically very different, and that previous precision tailoring means Warlords would need a great deal of revision to fit. And as several people have pointed out, deciding which direction to take those revisions is not something easily agreed on.
Maybe this all is a warning of the dangers of over-specialization. That when you purpose build something for a very specific environment, as soon as the environment changes it's left high and dry. Meanwhile something designed more broadly will be easier to adept to the new circumstances.
That isn't the case anymore in 5E. There is a lot of overlap and universal subsystems, like spells are back to being less exclusive, as are many combat abilities. I do like the overlap more, as long as each class gets something unique and interesting.