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The thing is that there is no incentive to raise your Dex for a better AC. Secondly, I hope items such as gloves of Dexterity are removed from 4th, but we'll see.

Conversely, without a max dex on armour, there will be every reason to pump your dex, regardless of what build you are using, simply because it stacks with whatever armour you are wearing. That seems just as bad IMO, in that there is absolutely no reason why a player would want to act any other way.

Yes, a higher dex gives you better initiative (reflex is being combined into AC for the next game). There's a certain point where it doesn't terribly matter what your initiative is, because you almost always or always go first.

Really? A pit fiend has an initiative of +12. Can you shed some light on how a fighter who dumps dex can possibly expect to go first on a consistent basis?

Having a +4 armor stack with a +4 Dex is not a big deal compared to another person who has a +1 armor stack with a +4 Dex.

There is then the question of why fullplate grants so little protection compared to leather armour. Does it solve the problem? Perhaps. Is it very illogical and inelegant? Very, to me at least.

It is highly likely that all classes will get a level bonus to their AC, making a player choose either their armor bonus or their level bonus works great since that 18 Dex you put on your character will still fully benefit you during your career.

I don't understand. Why wouldn't this level bonus stack with armour? Or in said scenario, then don't wear armour, and rely solely on your class defense bonus if you want to benefit fully from dex.

And, allowing Fighters to grab a talent which allows them to keep half their armor bonus in addition works great. If full plate gave +8 AC normally, it would only give +4 AC with this talent. Consider Combine #3 and #4 and full plate would give +4 AC normally, and now +2 AC with this talent. Perhaps there would be no need to give half an armor bonus, and just leave it at +4. In either of these cases, there is still no need for a Max Dex.

From what I can see, you are not proposing that max dex be done away with because it is irrelevant in the current context, but rather, it may be less useful because of a certain set of rules which you believe should/would be implemented. There is a very big difference, IMO, because 4e is far from being finalized, and we simply have no idea what will be included or not. Star wars is a fair yardstick, but it would think it a great folly to expect that it mirror star wars perfectly.

If you require that all the aforementioned new rules be implemented just to negate the role max dex plays in dnd, then you will have all but flat-out admitted that in the absence of such rules, max dex does indeed play a very crucial role in maintaining game balance (why else would you require such rules to plug said gap in the first place?!?).

In the same vein, I can argue that unless you are 100% sure that 4e will be designed in the exact same way you are claiming, that it is way to early to decide if max dex should be abolished or not (because apparently, removing max dex without implementing any of your suggestions is a recipe for disaster).

Likewise, according to you, removing 1 rule (max dex) requires the introduction of 3-4 new rules (smaller armour bonuses, a new custom feat, new class features among other implicit assumptions) to fill in the blanks. That seems counterintuitive in my book, in that you are expending even more effort just to maintain the status quo, when no effort would even have been required in the first place.

Indeed High Dex fighters are very left out. The entire reason that you're a high dex fighter is so that you can hit and avoid being hit. Dex as it currently is does not help you dodge hits any better than a guy in armor. Initiative is nice, but doesn't save you from being slammed after you finish your turn.

Yes, but I fail to see how being agile necessarily affords any more protection than being clad from head to toe in impenetrable armour and just having the blows bounce right off you. At the end of the day, both would be just as adept at avoiding blows, just that they go about it in different ways.

Initiative is also fairly important, because the faster you take down your foe, the less chance he has of attacking you, which translates to less damage taken at the end of the day. So at the end of the day, its role is little different from AC in that they all help to prevent damage one way or another.

Their flavor is all about being dodgey and evasivey, but instead their AC sucks and they get hit every time.

No, it simply means that they are more dodgy and evasive than other classes (which manifests in the form of higher touch ACs and better speed due to lighter armour). It does not imply that they should be able to escape being hit a greater majority of the time compared to a fighter with the same AC but lower overall dex.

That is the whole point of AC - it determines how readily attacks fail to strike you in one way or another. There is no reason why a rogue with dex22 and leather armour (AC18) should be able to escape hits any better than a fighter with dex16 and a breastplate (also AC18) because at the end of the day, they both have the same AC and by definition, have the same chance of being hit in combat.

Also, it seems very weird for say, a fighter with 30dex to still be able to maintain his degree of mobility and reflexes while wearing say, mountain plate. I don't see how he will still be as adept in dodging blows and somersaulting around the battlefield while being encumbered to such an extent. In the very least, I can see an argument for limited removal of max dex cap (perhaps having 1/2 your remaining dex mod apply over and above what said armour normally allows), but definitely not 100% of your dex mod.

On another note, #3 solves the fact that there are a plethora of useless armors. Having only 4 armors simplifies things and reduces uselessness.

I could argue a similar case in 3.5, where we really only need fullplate, breastplate and the assorted light armours. However, I am not sure if an oversimplification is all that desirable here.

3. However, in 3.5E, as characters level up, they either acquire items that give Armor bonus or +DEX items. The result is that NOBODY wears heavy armor, because nobody wants to be limited to 20ft. This is retarded. Point: No max Dex.

At best, this would be indifferent. How does it argue in favour of removing max dex?