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I actually meant his post as where we heard first that the designers are going against common sense and exploiting a loophole. :)

I had read some of his early stuff where he was saying SLAs are not spells, but looks like they did a 180 and now SLAs are spells...

So to take this a step farther, if I have UMD and a scroll of magic missile that means I can qualify for Arcane Strike since I can cast an arcane spell?

All of which makes the RAW even sillier because by RAW a druid with an arcane SLA can get Arcane Strike and use their divine caster level for the damage bonus.

The developers assumed people would use some form of common sense when applying the rules.. unfortunately that does not appear to happen most of the time on the rules forum.

The ruling about SLAs gave an example of needing a specific spell, not a general "arcane spells". People are taking the ruling a little out of the scope of the question that was asked. Also the arcane strike says "spells" not spell, so technically if someone could only SLA a single arcane spell they couldnt qualify for it since they can cant cast arcane "spells" only and arcane "spell"
It is pretty clear what the feat was intended to require and people are just trying to make a loophole because of an answer to specific case regarding access to a specific spell to qualify for something.

So casting burning hands is always going to be arcane, unless you're casting it with a divine spell slot.

Along the same lines, spells gained from a domain dont count for spell completion items as they arent on your spell list

Seriously? Did you have to walk up hill both ways in the snow to the game too? I played AD&D, thats how I started, and there was certainly PLENTY of rollplay as opposed to roleplay. In fact, I think the modern era allows for a far greater depth of storytelling and character development, because characters last longer (anyone remember what a gygaxian dungeon was like? There were times we didnt bother coming up with names for new characters because they wouldnt last 20 minutes), and because the greater freedom of creation allows you to play the character you want to be instead of the character the dice force you to be.

Yeah I agree, the people I played 1st and 2nd edition with didnt bother coming up with character backgrounds, doing so is silly when you have no idea what your character is going to be until after you roll it up. And then when you started playing, why bother coming up with one when you are likely to be dead in a few sessions? (seriously people, did you read 1st and 2nd edition modules? If not go download a copy of the Temple of Elemental Evil or Tomb of Horrors).

1st and 2nd were not about roleplaying at all, they were about dungeon crawls and trying to survive.

3rd+ lets you make a character you want to play, and thus be able to build a background and theme for the character and has a much higher survivability than previous editions.

People that dont at least make a half-ass effort to optimize their character just kind of piss me off. Adventuring parties arent forced together, they arent childhood friends going out adventuring. They are people that are putting themselves in life and death situations where they have to rely on those with them to stay alive. Why the hell do you think your party would take along Daisy the 5 con, 10 str, 20 int fighter that put all her level up feats into skill focus and her combat feats into things that dont help her fight, wears leather armor and fights with a dagger because she is pretending to be a rogue since that was her "cool character idea"?

Its great that people that play horrible characters think they are "role-playing" but this is a role-playing game, and the rest of the party is role-playing adventurers, which is a job that demands a minimum level of competency to succeed at.

Basic way to make a character:
1. think of the basic concept of what you want to play, keeping in mind that you are playing an adventurer, so playing Timmy the blind, mentality handicap, quadriplegic with a big heart might not be the best idea.
2. create the basics of that concept and take the minimum required items to be that concept.
3. finish off with abilities that allow you to function in the world and as an adventurer, adjusting step 2 if needed.
4. flesh out the character background based around what you ended up with.

This works out well for pretty much everyone as the power gamers are at least power-gaming around a concept and should come up with a background to match what they made, and the "role-players" have a playable character instead of a horrible useless waste of space that would never be taken on adventures.. and normal players are already pretty much following these steps with or without knowing it anyways.