> ...The wizard is much more difficult to play than the bard.

It's only as hard as you make it.

Still, saying that a wizard is much harder, when the wizards
I've started all say low difficulty seems to contradict your
opinion (in the designer's mind). The wizard has two goals in life:

1) Stay alive.
2) Nuke the crap out of things.

Wizards have no technicalities to deal with, no decisions to
make on the fly. They wait til X mob is at a certain health
and blast it. I believe wizards are right above warriors in
difficulty of play, that being easy. Bards are below enchanters
as far as difficulty of play on the opposite spectrum, which is
hard. The only thing that's hard for wizards is to comprehend
they aren't the soloing class they used to be. I rarely group
with wizards as they're not necessary for most of my groups to
function nominally. I'd most likely pick a utility caster:
druid or shaman, rather than a wizard. Just not into the sheer
damage factor, which can most often be resisted partially or
fully. I've never seen a warrior's axe or boot get resisted. ;)

On a side note, when the sh*t hits the fan, I do like having
a wizard around to drop something really fast. But other than
bringing along IC casters for dragon/plane raids, I generally
stay away from wizards.

Harmonic.