He wasn't saying new players shouldn't get easy characters, just that any class should have an "easy" version.
IE if I'm new and I like magic, there should be an "easy" magic using character class. I shouldn't be forced to play a fighter because that's the only easy option.
I agree wholeheartedly, I really really hope that
every class can be either played in an easy way or a complex way.
It worries me to hear from the seminars that the designers still have in mind to give some classes more complexity than others. I don't want beginners to be unable to play some classes because they are beyond their capabilities, just like I don't want experts to be uninterested in other classes because they can't get tactical enough with them!
Also I can't help but wondering... why can't
level already take care of that, at least partially? There's lots of expert gaming groups which start every new campaign at mid level already, and let beginners play 1st level games.
If you have a lot of attacks, but they take up a lot of time all the other players get annoyed, so it feels like you have too many attacks.
If you have a lot of attacks but they hardly take any time at all, no one gets annoyed so it doesn't feel like too many attacks.
I definitely like multiple attacks. Just like a mid-high level Wizard can blast multiple foes with a fireball, I like the idea of a Fighter chopping down multiple enemies or an archer shooting arrows e.g. to distract multiple spellcasters.
But I do recognize that 3ed multiple attacks routines don't work well at all, exactly because the penalties are way too large, and attacks beyond the 2nd already have too low a chance.
Thus I agree with those who suggest keeping multiple attacks but all at the same attack bonus. This way you can speed up the game because you have only 1 number for all your attacks, and everytime you're not interested in using a
special attack you can also just throw all your d20s at once, just like the Wizard does for her fireball damage, hence it's even faster.