Expanding on Weapons in 3.5

[Carthrat]

The cost for a +1 animated shield is what, 9k for +3 shield bonus to AC? Hey look rings of protection/amulets of nat armour are 8k for +2! Touch AC nonwithstanding, the discerning warrior should know what he wants to buy (all of them, if he's serious about keeping up with the AC race, or none of them, and focusing on alternative means of damage avoidance.)

Not really seeing how they're particularly unaffordable or hard to come buy.

And as an aside, I think they are visually retarded.

[Carthrat]

Another aside.

It takes one feat to be a dangerous threat with a two-handed weapon- power attack. It isn't something that requires deep specialization.

Thus, a warrior using shields can quickly bring his greatswordsmanship up to speed, and thus take advantage of the animated shield along with the new weaponary options avaliable to him. The point about having stats high enough to take advantage of a two-handed style seems a bit weird-  there's one stat, and that's strength, and you have no business being in a melee, shield or not, unless you have high strength, sneak attack, or magical hacks. But we're mainly talking about heavyweight warrior guys here, so the last two don't apply all that much (and don't tend to live off normal AC anyway.)

[Dracos]

Point ceded on further elaboration :)