Great article! I encountered one of these when I was younger with a DM who, in retrospect, didn't really know how to handle the characters he had overpowered in the course of playing. I think he was just scrambling for something (anything?) that would balance the game, but he wasn't great at thinking outside of the box. So it turned into a slugfest, characters died, people were angry, etc. Not a great experience, but I learned some good lessons from this encounter. I don't really blame the DM, we were all just kids figuring things out as we went.

Anyway, thanks for a great read.