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sword and shield is how you get the highest possible armor class.
The barbarian has always been way over stacked, he was mired in unearthed arcana by being a magic hating class, but that was taken away and he wasnt given enough penalties back to compensate, so basically he has become an uber fighter.
Fighter has long out existed barbarian. The fighter should never have been eclipsed by other add on classes.
on another note. the simplicity of the fighter used to mean the least expereinced members of the group played one.
What should we make "johnny new guy?" oh make him a fighter.
He didnt have lists of spells or skills to scroll through, he wasnt very complicated to play or understand for a new player, not a ton of extra die rolls like rogues.
Just simple. "what do you do mr fighter" ummmm "I kill it"
Used to be a group of characters with out a fighter (or two or three) would get wiped out before they could advance in level.
Parties used to depend on eachothers class.
Couldnt get into chests without the rogue, couldnt heal without the cleric, the magic user had tons of useful spells and when getting hoarded by gobs of orcs, fireball was the only way out.
Now there is so much focus on the all round HERO, the team work for survival (which is where the fighter came in) is mostly lost.
If played correctly, the fighter gave the rogue time to hide, and move around to make a back attack, gave the spellcaster time to cast and basically kept the enemy infront of everyoe, rather than ragin through the middle of the party.
Also I wonder why the twohanded sword 3d6 damage got traded in for the greatsword 2d6 damage.
A two handed dragon slaying sword in 1e certainly made for a better dragonslayer than the greatsword version today.
Fighters with heavier weapons and the old AC system dealt more damage and got hit less.
Thats not the case any more.
Some of those basic "invisible rules" are things that were taken away from the fighter.
Now everyone is trying to find ways to put his edge back (it should never have been taken away to begin with)
all I have to say is dont add too much to the fighter, hes already a very busy character class these days, any more and he'll loose his generic simpleness.
Also even though the barb technically can get more hit points, his raging behavior and less armor typically means he will hold onto to those hit points less frequently than the more heavily armored and reserved fighter.
also polearm weilding fighters are probably overlooked (nobody like polearms) but the reach of the polearms if included correctly in the game can make the character quite useful, especially when fighting and and around door ways.
Even tho barbs and rangers CAN use polearms, youll never see them use them (otherwise they would never have been a ranger or a barb to begin with)