Well, good thing I don't have to earn your respect to be respected by others here. My rule is simple: respect others and you'll be respected. I'm not here to "fool people", I'm here trying to add more facts a delicate and dividing issue. I imagine people are smart enough to make their own conclusions based on everything that is beeing said here. If they aren't, this is not my problem.
The point about the "Undeaths Eternal Foe" is a good one. Honestly, I don't know if it can be, lets say, "counterattacked" (in fact, I wondered what that "max ac dodge" meant). I'll have to put some thought on this, I had just copied the stats from the builds threads on my last post.
I haven't said horses weren't powerful. Of course they are powerful, that's why I'm making one: because they are worth it. But the way you've been saying that "just by taking 43 ride will get 9 dodge ac" is misleading. Isn't it "crap" too how you've been defending it? To max it out you need at least 1 lvl of the classes above, 1 feat and 2 extra int points or trade one maxed skill for that.
While it may not seem much, IN MY OPINION (because you think I'm trying to control everyone's mind) it seems to narrow a lot the possibilities of exploring that benefit, with the exception of the Paladin, which unites cleric buffs, full bab progression and taunt, and Fighter, because the ring made them powerful and they have "unlimited" feats. I could be wrong; thats the beauty of it: since you're a experienced player, show more builds/facts that I might have neglected.
Making a pure horserider has also some drawbacks I've noticed. The obvious is that you're limited to wilderness areas, so most of the xp/action will be lost to you. If you're not making it a paladin or bg, you'll lose your horse when you die, which can be quite irritating if yu're not a lvl 40, and you won't be able to use it in Underdark. So basically they have 2 uses imo: pvp and city raids, although many see them as useless on the last.
So, if they are powerful, then why it would I be wrong in exploring its benefits? Since you talked about it, yeah, I've made 3 more horse rider builds: 29 aa/1sorc/10 pally ; 9 bard/4 bg/ 27 aa ; 28 barb/7 wm / 5 bg. The 2 first deal with a known problem of aa's that is the low ac, might be good for raiding. The barb was an idea I had when I wrote my last post. Btw, many here must remember how I was eager to see Horses beeing added to the game, so at least the result you talked about could be foreseen 6 months ago.
You see me as a "only pally" builder. Fine, think that of me. I'll just say that you stayed out for 3-4 months and making multiple builds with the same abilities would be boring and not funny at all.
My main reason I'm defending the horses are basically what Nobu said: they are an addition to an old the game that many people have already explored most of its possibilities. Take them out and you'll subtract from it, take them out and you'll subtract attractiveness of it. That's why I'm always up to some crazy ideas that sometimes pop up now and then.
Of course, nothing is perfect. That's why discussing is important so everyone express their analysis and thoughts about it.
Side note 1: Shin, I still think rangers should get a mount too lol