A. Doesn't matter what "JaronK" said. Tier is a real concept employed by every multi-character game ever with real sets of criteria and mathematical practices. JaronK's Tiers are his personal rankings based on what he felt like surrounded by text everyone already knew about but didn't put down on paper. This is why the Barbarian is ranked higher than the Monk or Dungeoncrasher bumps a Fighter up in ranking.
Congrats. You posted a definition everyone knows, and raised no point. Given that they are posted up, what most people are familiar with, and is at least mostly accurate, it was a good baseline for discussion.
B. T3 is home to the Bard, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Martial Adapts, and Warmage. Notice how most of that list is spellcasters not "melee guys". And yes, the Bard is often more versatile than the Sorcerer as it's not remotely hard to build a Bard that handles skills, combat, party buffs, CC and even access to Polymorph, all of which is better diversity than generally any Sorcerer Spell list posted before replies start improving it. The Sorcerer is ahead because he can pick through the books and optimize his list and he does have 9th level spells over the Bard.
In what universe is the bard more versatile than the Sorcerer. The Sorcerer is a full caster, its whole job is singing "Anything you can do, I can do better." Even the most basic optimization will get you there. Your bard build either using a mediocre prestige class, or is using an inferior sorcerer as a prestige class. Either way, I am unimpressed. And the others: Oh noez, an inferior sorcerer-wanabe, someone who thinks he's a CC-wizard who loses to anything with any protections, or is undead, a golem, has extra senses, or any number of other ways to make it cry, an inferior arcane cleric-wanabe, and sword-bitches. Yeah, I'll stick with the sorcerer. Hell, excluding Rainbow Servants and Sublime Chords, I'd bet a Sorcerer could do ANYTHING a team if all of the other classes you just mentioned better and faster. Actually good spells are just too superior to Plague of Undeath, Programmed Image, Meteor Swarm, wannabe Wuxia, and bagpipes. Okay, maybe not bagpipes, due to their sheer win, but the person playing them.
C. On Warblade vs Swordsage.
There seems to be a lot of focus on the Swordsage's ability to hide. Stealth is a skill, any moron can do it. Shadow Hand doesn't have any good Save-or-Dies and they are based on Wisdom which is fundamentally a AC only thanks to another Class Feature, not exactly synergistic for combat unlike Strength or versatile like Int's extra skill points. The already mentioned greatest Shadow Hand maneuvers are the teleports, but they have no prerequisites so for 3k~45k the Warblade has them too.
Stealth is very useful at low levels, and Shadow Hand does have plenty of useful maneuvers. Even their crappiest SoS has plenty of synergy, and, once again, has out-of-combat versatility. Yes, any moron can do it, but they can do it well, with no real investment, better than any real non-caster. They also have the only mundane teleport, and the out of class access works both ways, plus, at low-mid optimization(IE, where people aren't throwing around gods and mailmen), the Swordsage leads directly into Mo9 without any work. While it is strictly inferior to the Idiot Crusader, it plays better with others.
Now lets talk real versatility. You know what kicks the crap about of using the Hide skill? White Raven. You know, they entire disciple focused around party tactics, maneuvering, and buffs. Sharing is caring and the Warblade isn't playing dark emo in the corner. You're typical Warblade can shut AOOs down, reposition allies, grant extra turns, and savelessly stun the crap out of people. And I'm still only talking about things the Swordsage doesn't have here. Iron Heart claims less but while the Swordsage is sneaking off pretending to prevent an ambush, the Warblade breaks the mass CC effect dropped on the party, and then regrants his CC caster another chance to f*ck up the other side. We could literally be talking about which side is getting raped by some Black Tentacles here, not omg I can blink around uselessly because my feet are faster. And when turn 3 or 4 rolls around, the real weakness of the Swordsage sets in and he calls time out while the rest of the party if ripping out doorways like wrappers to get the uncooked fear soaked candy-meat cowering inside.
Who said anything about hide? You have Invis. And mundane teleports. And you have access to all their toys, if you want to go down that path. Getting Iron Heart Surge is 6K and a feat. Same with WRT. Oh, the horror, I cannot believe the difficulty. Hell, it costs anyone 6K and a feat. And you ignore out of combat versatility, which is just as important. Oh, and the Swordsage has much nicer PrCs.
Also? If your CC Mage was actually caught in CC, urdoinitwrong. Tentacles are nice, if you're into that stuff, but any caster should get out of it, just like any caster worth their spell slots should bring, or have up, plenty of ways to get out of most CC. In fact, Effective immunity to Evard's Kinky Tentacles is 2600 GP. Immunity to AMFs costs an extra thousand or two GP per item. Immunity to a whole host of unpleasant crap including dazing, stunning, fatigue, and so on costs your buddy taking two levels of Incantatrix and you spending 11200. So your points are all mooted by something you said or basic WBL-mancy. Yawn. Hell, all of the things you're touting as so amazing, a mid-level commoner could do. Do, and be immune to.
Basically, at low-mid levels of optimization, the swordsage can do most of what you can do better, and has more tricks. At high optimization, all of your tricks are accomplishable by a commoner. Should I post a build?
Honestly, I think ToB could use its own little tier stuck between tiers 3 and 4. ToB is strictly inferior to all of T3, but generally superior to most of T4.