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My thoughts on the Paladin.
Detect Evil could be reworded to better facilitate its use in a game. When I play paladins its easier to ask when a paladin isn't detecting rather than when it is. I would feel much more happier if a paladin could sense the presence of evil within a 10ft radius rather than actually homing in on the first thing he detects. Another option would be to give the paladin the effect of blind-sense while combating evil creatures making a paladins evil detection more potent than the 1st level spell but also reducing its effective range so it doesn't affect every single combat. This would also give paladins a reason to use detect evil. in fact thinking about this a little more why not remove detect evil[sp] at will and replace it with an Aura of Detection that grants the paladin blind-sense against evil opponents with 10 ft. and also provides the paladin and allies with 10 ft a a +4 bonus on perception and sense motive checks to against evil creatures?
Smite Evil I would like to see the removal of a missed attack still causing the ability to be used. The way to look at smite in this instance would be that the paladin charges his attack with divine power which is unleashed against the first evil creature he strikes. The useage per day is limiting enough but having the ability wasted really does leave a bad taste in your mouth.
Lay on Hands is fine as is but I would like to see the damage to undead doubled to make it more useful as an attack, however this should grant the undead affected a saving throw for half damage.
Spells need to be charisma based, I'm in agreement with others that paladins suffer with regards to stat dependency. out of the 4 groups I play with they all now use a stat creation system I created that we refer to as the Hero Array. Each character gets the Elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) and rolls 2d4+2 adding them to stats on a one for one basis. This system (like the point buy) makes it difficult for characters reliant on more than 3 stats to make effective characters. However I would prefer to see spells go completely since I often use either the non-spellcasting paladin from Complete Warrior or the Holy Warrior alternate class feature from Complete Champion in most of my builds (my current character in one game is actually a Holy Warrior Paladin who will be going Divine Crusader at 9th level).
Divine Bond is a nice addition to combat the uselessness of a mount in a dungeon environment. I'm not sure I agree with the duration of 1 minute per paladin level because In my experience by second level the 2 minute duration will last an entire encounter of almost any size while most DM's agree that between each encounter (unless specifically designed to be continuous) the party generally spends 10 minutes looting and recovering before moving onto the next This makes abilities that last more than 2 minutes pointless (and the same goes for all the spells that have the same duration). I would rather see the use set up as 1 minute fixed duration usable 1/day per plus you can assign (maximum 6/day) and at the paladins choice the weapon radiates light as a torch for 1 hour per paladin level (enhancing a paladins ability to lead the party into dark dungeons for more than just a few minutes a day).
Aura of Resolve, Aura of Justice, and Aura of Righteousness I love these because they do what I feel is sorely missed from all classes, the ability to enhance the entire party. I've said it before and will repeat it here, the base classes need more abilities that help create a party by enhancing each others abilities both in and outside of combat. Encounters are designed to challenge a party and so too should a parties abilities to defeat that encounter be shared. A barkskin spell is far more effective cast on a fighter than the druid, a monk benefits more from a mage armor spell than the mage does but the effects do not reverse very well. a fighter who can parry blows against weaker allies would be very useful for example.
Aura of Faith I'm not sure where to go with this. it reading is a little confusing. the first sentence indicates that the paladins weapon is good aligned while the second sentence indicates that all allies attacks within 10 feet of you are considered good aligned. given that the ability is an aura I would imagine the second sentence is the defining rule and that all weapons are considered good aligned while they ally is within 10 ft of the paladin and that the paladin is included in this bonus. however since the wording say attacks would this also apply to any attack form an ally has such as spells like spiritual weapon?
Holy Champion Well done in providing another final ability that makes staying single classed a viable concept for the base class. This theme must continue throughout the classes. [Applause]
In general, Paladin discussions should probably take into consideration the Paladin Playtest discussion going on Here. Real playtests, real disappointing.
However, on a purely rules related point, I can answer some:
However since the wording say attacks would this also apply to any attack form an ally has such as spells like spiritual weapon?
It doesn't matter. Whether an attack be Good Aligned or not is a quandary which affects only its response to Damage Reduction. Spells like spiritual weapon are terrible, but they are magic attacks, and therefore ignore DR regardless. Spiritual Weapon does Force damage, and thus is affected by Force energy resistance or immunity, not DR.
-Frank