That archetype comment is totally wrong. With creative multi-classing and power choices, you can build very original characters that are not based off of any archetype. Plus, the flavor is wide open. You just have to understand the limits of what any one character is capable and of what any group is capable.
A two-person group is going to benefit a lot more from "spread it around" than a five-person group. And once you have all of the combat roles covered, spreading things around doesn't hurt and can just as easily help.
Honestly, if you take the cleric discussion and boil it down to a discussion about archetypes, then you don't understand what it's about. Some cleric powers use wisdom, while others use strength. They accomplish basically the same mechanical task. Damage the enemy, buff your party, debuff your enemy. Flavor-wise, both wisdom clerics and strength clerics could be pretty well identical. And one wisdom cleric could be totally different from another. But you only have so many ability points to spend, so giving yourself so-so scores in everything and then trying to do everything will end up with, surprise, so-so results.
This isn't to reign in character creativity or more firmly implant archetypes, it's to keep classes from cherry picking the best of every world. It's actually mechanical protection AGAINST the superwarrior archetypes.
