I want to point out the hilarious contradiction that arose when you said "Other than the one entire branch of spells, another similar but different branch of spells, another group of power, powerful PrCs, and a bunch of other spells, the Wizard's not powerful at all!" Look, it's okay if you like that power level. Just aknowledge that it is powerful.
As to your d) point: why should the wizard (or other caster, but this mostly pertains to the Wizard) be as powerful as any other class at what they do? As it is now, wizards are capable of taking care of any situation with no trouble whatsoever. If that's the goal for non-wizards, powerwise, wizards will STILL be the most powerful class by far, because not only are they capable of replacing, say, the Rogue for skill use, but the Cleric for healing/buffing, the Fighter for combat, the Monk for whatever it is the MOnk does, etc. all at the same time. So they are as powerful as any one class at a task as that class is, but have the advantage of being able to do other things (as well as the classes that specialize in those things even).
As to your other points: that's the problem with the casters. Unless you do fix the problems with overly powrful spells, they do indeed do those things. No two ways about it. So by default, they do definitely need to be nerfed....unless you want those points to still be a problem. If you don't care, and want to bring everyone else up to that level, more power to you I guess. But you can't argue that the casters are not the problem and then come around and say "they do have these things that make them overly powerful, but those don't count".
As for the Tome series, my memory of them isn't too hot, as it was a long time ago that I read them, but I remember a distinct design philosophy difference between me and Frank and K. The way they designed things was not the way I prefer to design things, and it did indeed lead to a massive power creep for the mundanes. They made everyone tier 2, when I prefer lower tier 3, as it's much easier to balance, much easier to challenge, and much more efficient at not breaking things. As for feats, they have a bunch grant benefits at higher HD, effectively granting 3 feats for the price of 1. I really do not like this. I prefer more feats being granted, and each feat being useful at all levels.
For rebalancing attempts that don't just add numbers: me and EjoThims have a Monk, and Ejo's got a Fighter, Barbarian, Rogue, etc. in Verold. For rebalancing attempts on casters: I know Bauglir's been working on an interesting one, that one promises to be good. RobbyPants as well.
