I've discussed this with Sev and Zal, and we've agreed in principle to try out on a limited basis a new system of character creation.  The basic idea of this system is that parity and balance should exist between the members of a party.  How these characters interact within the worlds in which they are played is not a factor.

So here is the idea:  Come to the table with a notion of the type of things you want your character to be able to do.  Examples of this are:

"I want to play a front-line-heavy armor warrior who acts as the war leader with the ability to urge the party on.  I think my character is a bit like a paladin without the holy complex, but maybe with some party buffs like the 3.5 marshal.  He doesn't do a lot of damage but he can take aq beating like the Crusader."

"I see myself as a martial artist with some good interpersonal skills.  I think some monk abilities are in flavor, but I also want some increases in CHA based abilities.  Maybe some bardic face skills?"

"I want to a be a healer in the purest sense of the word.  I'd love to have healing and damage negation spells, but also lay on hands and channel.  I also like the "Spirit of Healing" from Dungeonscape."

"I want to be a Half-dragon warrior.  I want to grow the dragon within my like the Draconic Bloodline, but I also want to bash.  A lot.  I don't care much about spells, but maybe a few spell like abilities that are in flavor with my chosen element would be cool."

"I want to be a nimble warrior.  I really like the 9 swords items, so maybe some cool initiator powers would be ok?  I'd also like to play a chracter with a decent INT.  Any way to let me use Int for intimidate?"

All of these are great basic starts for a character.  Some are mechanics driven, some are RP driven, but all are massively descriptive of the character.  In this system, all of those who are powerbuilders can work together to come up with characters that the party will want to play.  Think of it like Rianardu.  We all brought (and still bring) things to the table to make the world an amazing series fo adventures.  I see this as the ultimate exercise in creative power building.

Now the biggest critique of this idea so far is that it's a F*** TON of work.  For a single adventure, this could be months of work.  However, Zal pointed out, this work load may be lessened as we create a database of characters.  The notion here is to create a single class build, and I'm curious what we can come up with if we put our minds to it.