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From my experience, melee characters are the least of a caster's problems. It's the well-played rogues that are the caster slayers.
And no, I've not yet found a single AI set that's convincingly intelligent. Most of the time you'll see the creatures wasting their rounds on using mind-affecting spells on people immune to mind effects, innate Death abilities against people immune to Death Magic and doing nothing when they can't see their enemy at the time.
Also, they do have better hiding simply because they are both Dex based and get more bonus feats. Where the Wizard/Cleric/SD can be happy with 40 hide/move, the other class can easily get 60 without it affecting their abilities in any significant way, and much more than that if desired. The significant difference being that characters with spot or listen can up this number to 40 without much trouble. 40/40 means you'll be detected far more often than 40/60.
The difference between Quicken and Automatic Quicken is that the former puts your spells 4 categories higher, whereas the latter makes all your spells Quickened. Even the level 9 ones. It takes a few feats but for a class making stealth its strength, I daresay it'll be worth it.
Attribute bonusses are capped at +12. The higher the base, the higher the maximum, the greater the bonus. You definately want to optimize the way you spend your initial points.
For traps, you can't rely on the familiar alone. It works wonders when you know where to expect them, but otherwise, a level 22 pixie won't save you from the worst of them.
Finally, reliance on spells for protection. Saves will certainly be an issue. Any level 40 spellcaster can remove a LOT of your protective magics with just a single spell, and they have a good number of those. Saves are going to matter.
I'm sure the character is effective in many situations, but then that goes for most level 40's [img]smile.gif[/img]
What I want to see is why it would be a cut above the rest.
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