Tome of Battle-not for flavor or for caster supremacy, but because I don't want to add yet another mechanic to the game (maneuvers).
Banning this and psionics indicates a lazy dm. I don't pretend to know very much about psionics, so I trust the player to tell me what he can do. If it sounds too good, I'll look it up after the game. I'll say you should always give Melees the benefit of the doubt...they need it.
Villain/Hero specific books that contradict the theme of the game, no villain source if it's a "goodly" campaign (ex: Champions of Ruin and the like) no hero source if it's an "evil" campaign.
Ban indicates it's not available to the dm either, so this is just silly. You can, by all means restrict access to certain books for pcs based on alignment, but hand-cuffing yourself as the dm by banning the counter books is silly. (and an invitation to have your game ruined by a cleric)
BoVD/BoED, mostly because of one player who expressly and intentionally misinterpreted the rules and could not fit the roleplay requirements for an exalted character (yes, this was a Vow of Poverty Monk). He abused it so badly that none of us can use either.
I can't see how a vow monk, even misinterpreting the rules, could be anything but broken in the doesn't work way. The reason vow of povery sucks isn't the roleplay requirement, it's that magic items are 100x better than what VoP offers. It sounds like you weren't giving out enough treasure to your players, and they in turn weren't finding/buying/crafting even the simplest magic items.
No 3rd party. There is some weird stuff out there and tracking down every single extra supplement by every person who had a "neat idea" and enough to self publish is a pain. Banning third party makes the line a lot clearer than saying "yes" or "no" to every possible option. Effectively this means that it has to have the official logo or be endorsed as official material (yes, this means we allow Dragon Magazine)
Short of a few Aeg products and hacked to pieces, all the 3rd party I've read is more balanced than Core. Dragon Magazine even beats out Aeg if you know where to look.
And then, the gentleman's agreement, which is sometimes enforced by in game effects. Such as the rest of the party getting special items or other toys and the problem player receiving nothing; the plot hook the players receive becomes a problem/detriment to the problem player; NPCs are brought in to irritate said player; or simply, the problem player gets no sideplot, no matter what he insists upon. Sometimes it's enforced by out of game effects, like having to sit on the sidelines while the rest of the players have their scenes narrated.
Metagame dick-wagging isn't very fun. It indicates a horrible DM. I've never felt the need to troll my players, but have had dms who did just that (those campaigns usually end quickly).
Monty-Halling the players who aren't as invested in character strength isn't always the best idea. At best, it comes off as favoritism, at worst it throws balance to the wind, and forces an arms racing scenario.
We don't like to have to enforce it, but sometimes you get a player who will simply argue rules for hours... including house rules. That's just disruptive. I've had to just come down heavy handed once because a player ended up nit picking a house rule that I had to implement (in his favor I might add) because he wanted yet more out of it. It took hours. So, no more arguing. You want it? You got it, but expect the BBEG to focus on *you* next combat, and possibly the one after, depending on how greedy, selfish and destructive you get.
Wow, I suspect you are a new DM. I've had hours long arguments over house rules myself(in 2e, which favored the dm). Usually it was because the dm was giving away too much to certain players while ignoring others. He did what you did, which was to focus on my character in a meta-fashion (even going so far as to rape her). Well, it soured everybody to him, because they knew I was correct. Antipathy games like this don't last very long.
I know some might not agree with this, but it allows good players to get rewarded and encourages good behaviour and table manners. there are some bumps, but they even out quickly and there are more ways than one to neuter an aggressive drama queen.
In game rewards for playing like the dm wants you to is just strait up coddling your pcs. Most of your post was about how you punish instead of how you reward. "Aggressive drama queens" are just dm's in the wrong game role. I suggest you go back to being a player and let your problem player dm things for a while. I think you will be surprised. I've done this myself plenty of times, and every time, the "problem player" was a decent dm. The longest campaign I've ever been in had shared dm roles, and everybody eventually adopted what they liked each other doing. It led to a nearly non-hostile environment where the math came forward. Once this happens the new enemy of the game becomes linear wizards/quadratic fighters (edit: scratch that, reverse it...lol), so we just E6'd that to nill.
