I've long been a critic of the archetype concept. My main two objections were 1) it adds complexity to the game, and 2) archetypes are too tied to a particular character class and too inflexible.
I've come up with an idea for an alternative: customizable options. Basically it is a house rule that allows you to take an archetype ability whenever you would gain the class ability that would replace, whether or not you have the class listed for the archetype.
For example, in the Advanced Player's Guide, a Breaker gains destructive in place of fast movement. With my house rule, a character about to gain his third level of Monk could take destructive instead of fast movement if he wanted to be the kind of character who could just break things with his bare hands and feet.
I'm not really sure how good this idea is.
Without a lot of deep thinking on the subject, I'm not really sure I see the difference between it and the current archetype model -- other than the separation from the base class, which I guess could be significant.
I don't think it's really necessary for an archetype to change a lot of the options/abilities in a class, so if you prefer to track one-for-one ability trades, more power to you.
I do wonder, however, if it would be difficult to maintain balance. It almost seems like you would have to have the DM/GM approve each archetype application for fear the player would hit on an unexpected and overpowered combination.
Of course, that last would be a negligible issue if there are not a lot of archetypes available.
Just "thinking" out loud... for me, the current archetype system seems fine though I have not gotten much benefit out of it yet.
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This is certainly more flexible, but it doesn't reduce the complexity you see in archetypes, it multiplies it.
Archetypes are a way to give a character some focus and specialization, That's what an Archetype is, an *example* of some concept. Not a collection of unrelated abilities.
I would think archetypes are balanced, within the same class to one another, but that's probably not the case if you look at each ability separately.
Try to make the most broken thing you possibly can, at levels 10 and 20, and then compare it to a straight-archetype.
Might help to give you an idea of how over- or under-powered it is.