I would hazard to say that high stats in 4e has less chance for imbalance than 3e because at this point in time there is not as much opportunity for minmaxing.

We have a house rule for HP where you get max HP at level 1, then for subsequent levels if you roll half or below on the dice you roll again. And a variation on that roll, if you roll below half, you then automatically get half HP instead. It saves the embarrassing situation of the wizard having more HP than the fighter, which is possible.

I prefer point buy for stats myself, although rolling can make for interesting characters to roleplay if you're not too worried about combat. When I first played Warhammer Fantasy it was such a disappointment to be pigeon-holed to a certain career because of the dice... you didn't roll x dice and then assign them to ability, you rolled for each stat! Suddenly your hopes of being a Targeteer were much more limited.

That's how it used to be back in 2nd ed if I remember correctly.

I remember that most games were that way. I even miss it sometimes in D&D

Not to derail but...

Interestingly enough I don't have much problem with that. But then again my GM was kind enough to let us re-roll if we got crap.

Once anyway.

He also let us roll starting talents and careers twice and pick which ever we wanted.
I still didn't get what I wanted of course but after a year (and not a few mutations...) my human soldier is finally ready to pick up some magical teachings.
Ok, so he's the sidekick to the leader of a beastman horde (short of a thousand beastmen) now, but that's besides the point.