First let me say there was a recent bard conversation, though it wasn't really about what I am going to talk about here. For reference however-
As for why I'm writing this post now? Well, I'm about to play a bard for the first time since the changes were first done, and since I was playing a bard when the massive overhaul happened, I never really wanted to look at it too deeply, I already knew my last bard was now vastly inferior to what looked to be the two core bard builds now, charisma vs constitution.
But as I look at it now, I realize that's it's not a choice of two..not really. For a charisma bard you need four epic feats, 2 of which are relatively pointless to the bard, the second cadence is neat but not really important either, and then song of the heart that gives a +1 to everything the song is boosting. Nice, but when compared to EDR3 builds, you have less flexibility as a charisma bard, you have one less feat and while your song is a little better you are undoubtably going to be easy pickings for the other side.
So, me being me, I spent the morning thinking about possible solutions while I got some work done.
Step 1, raise the charisma to 27, eliminating the ability to get even a little edr for your bard.
Step 2, Boost the range of the song to double or triple the current radius with song of the heart.
Step 3, boost the dc of all bard spells by 2 for bards with song of the heart.
Now I'm probably stuck with a con bard, since I want to start my new character this weekend, but I really think going forward changes along this line to song of the heart is the way to go. I know bard song is very hard to balance, but I don't think these changes would break the class. In fact, I think you could even add a little more to the charisma bard, since even with these changes the con bard might still be better. But at least this presents a real choice, instead of what exists now, the choice and the trap.