This thread has been a great read. I have DM'd for over 15 years, and had experience with the psionics from 2e and 3/3.5. I must say I agree with the following general statements:
1) XPH was good. Best balance overall, but the psi-races were kind of silly. If you want to make that an option (bonus pp's) then have the character drop one of their other racial bonuses (like +2 vs giants).
2) MOST of the problems people have had with psionics do seem to come from rules misinterpretation and UBERMUNCHKIN characters. Those problems don't go away when that player decides to be, for example, a drow ranger with a panther sidekick (anyone else have one of those in the party?); but they are kind of expected; we KNOW those characters are min-maxers and we build adventures accordingly. Lack of experience with psionics will leave you with a lack of variety in handling min-maxing psionic characters - get familiar with their weaknesses, get familiar with the rules, and make sure they DON'T get to be the shining force in the darkness every single encounter. Having a rules lawyer in the party is good for this one - I let him read all the books and tell me when the other players were trying to bend a rule; he played a straight druid and I only had to worry about whether his spells were legit (I fix'd Miasma in our games before they nerfed it in the re-print - auto-kill from a druid just wasn't fun). The rope trick 15 minute adventuring day was something I had to deal with back in 2e, early on - I nerfed the spell so that anyone with detect magic could find and use the hole. A couple kobolds with a ladder and move silently...one less NPC later they decided to use that spell in the WOODS, and not in the DUNGEON.
3) DO reprint an updated Pathfinder Psionics Book! Take the example from Eberron and integrate it into the landscape the way they did - put it mostly on another continent and DM's that don't want to use psionics can just keep steering their parties away from there. I second the feelings on the incarnum - I put it in my campaign (stole the world from Magic - put it in Jamuraa) and it was cool without being overpowering (actually was pretty weak, maybe add it with another one of the forgotten concepts, or pull it into the psionic fold as the revised psychometabolist, binding his powers to chakras so he wouldn't have to maintain concentration or worry about focus).
Now if I can just find some players that aren't deploying to Afghanistan, I will start up some of this Pathfinder stuff. Downloaded the Beta PDF last-month, looks great, not too many changes from Alpha and I love the simplified grapple rules - almost exactly what I had been using. I may just order a subscription!
