>all specs can choose the drive-lag legecy (although relying on
>this for perma lag, I hear, is a BIG mistake)

As a warrior, bash is the only ability available that can lag your opponent indefinitely. (That is, always has a chance to be doable again before they get a command.)

>I really dislike it. for a number of reasons, I'll outline two
>of them.
>
>one, either a mage class is balanced without a/b/s, then
>because a/b/s is so much of an insane boost to dam redux, any
>mage class balanced without it is overpowered with it. Or...a
>mage class is balanced for a/b/s. Then, by the same token,
>they are way way underpowered without it.

Or, they're balanced to have it sometimes, and not have it sometimes.

>a second reason, is that I don't buy that the whole argument
>the imms have given in the past for the existance of abs is
>the optimal solution.

What you describe is a reason; it's not the only reason. You're too black and white.

Something else to consider is that other classes often benefit from other kind of gear more than, say, an invoker does. Cool mace? Well, either my mace warrior or my invoker could wield it, but which one's probably getting more mileage out of it? In similar vein, for many different builds of warriors I can make arguments for gearing for damage, hitroll, hit points, saves, str, dex, even armor quality, etc... pretty much anything but mana. Mage gearing is typically much more limited in the number of different things that are a good idea, so in a sense, A/B/S helps equal out their exploring value.