Bringing this back to a general discussion of classes though; I think this also highlights the need to at least pay some lip service to class balance.
Strong in different areas not easily compared is one thing... ex. AD&D fighters having MUCH better saving throws in addition to followers, better armor, weapons and even their own categories of magic items that other PCs couldn’t aquire has all sorts advantages not easily measured against a wizard’s spellcasting (particularly the much more difficult casting limits like automatically losing a spell being cast from a single point of damage landing between declaring the action at the round’s start and the segment it goes off).
Inferior at everything important is quite another; a couple extra hp/HD (with everyone getting the same Con bonuses and stat-boosting items allowing them to eclipse the value of the HD), a bit higher base attack bonus (which barely mattered for the first attack and the inability to move while attacking more than once and stacking penalty to iterative attacks making them almost useless... plus spells that could boost BAB to fighter levels) coupled with pitiful skill points/class skill list, only one good save and class features that were just more of what everyone can get with later picks just adding more of what you could have gotten on another path by level 6 while spellcasters get ever more potent spells... and its why many people called 3.5e “Casters & Caddies.”
It helps a great deal if the designers don't start with preconceived ideas about the classes. That's back to the downside of gating abilities in a class for niche protection. If a class has an ability, you'd better make darn sure that only that class should have it OR have a means for several related classes to all have that same ability.
There's nothing
inherently wrong with the Fighter concept in 3E. Starting with a clean design, it could be made to work. It could not, however, work once the decision was made to have skills as separate things (with fighter not getting many)
and feats as separate things (with fighter getting bonuses but then largely nullifying that advantage with feat trees)
and several other martially-oriented characters with similar hit points, attacks, etc.
and magic being so wide-open with almost everyone else having it
and removing or sharing all of those saving throw and equipment advantages from 1E/2E. Having done all of that, the proper answer was to recognize that now the "fighter" isn't a class that fits in the design.
Or put another way, if you change the underlying assumptions that made fighter, wizard, and cleric good choices. Or change the assumptions that made fighter, wizard, cleric, and thief good choices. Or for that matter, elf, dwarf, and halfling: Then eventually you need a different set of classes to fit the new design.