So, as far as I can tell, the last three pages were people arguing for or against balance based on personal opinion, correct?
That's actually the issue though, personal opinion. I believe the changes to EE2/3 actually came about due to Thaumcraft 2. After seeing a mod that did extremely similar things also be very balanced, he decided to start from scratch. We haven't even seen over half of the mod yet, basically the minium stone recipe we do have is just there so it can be tested, there will actually be a lot of effort needed to make one.
Oh, just a reminder to people, not making a choice is still a choice, and not wanting something to change is still an argument.
That said, I think it might be better to flesh out both sides of this debate a little better. What we really have here is a debate of Fun vs Challenge.
Now, the arguers of the side of fun see this as a personal choice, and they are right. Even now, mods are making easy/moderate/modes, alternate recipe versions, even more configuration changes. Now, as people see EE3 and then see the author changing recipes to 'balance' them, they argue this is not an intelligent decision. I actually would somewhat agree, the change should be added, but allow a config option to use the old-mode. I think that would settle both sides? Now, as a coder, I can say that sometimes to add in specific functionality, you have to change the core mechanics. The EE dev has already stated that getting the stone will not be easy, and he does not intend it to be easy. He's trying to create as close to as possible the system of alchemy (As seen in history, not in Anime) into the game, at least as far as making the stones. Now, where the balancing act comes in is allowing transmutes...which leads to...
The Challenge side. This group actually rarely sets configs for personal use, they prefer to use a 'common' set of configs. This adds a certain bar to get over for specific things. That is where the balance argument comes from, is that community. They are worried that EE2 imbalance will once again be the bane of server admins. Now, to explain it for the fun crowd, it's not the 'something for nothing' mechanic specifically, it's the ability to skip almost all of the tech mods and simply get the best of the best with just a red-matter furnace that could be achieved very quickly in terms of things. I think it was this ability alone which made the game into EMC races. While a house of diamond blocks may be fun, the challenge group probably would not be very fulfilled by it.
Although, I will say, this thread is actually very humorous from the angle above, because of the inescapable truth. You're actually all correct.
Just remember though, It's beta. Expect features here today to be gone tomorrow, major mechanic changes, or scrapped in an instant. Judging it by fun or challenge currently is asking for disappointment down the road.