Only if you presume that every option can be evaluated by a single, fixed metric. The whole point of balance in a non-trivial game system is to find ways to offer incommensurate but clearly valuable benefits. E.g., to use 4e terms, having someone with healing and support powers (a Leader, whether by their innate class role or by investing feats, powers, and/or their PP into gaining that role) is "equally vital," in some sense, to having someone with high defenses and powers that force the enemy to choose between bad options (a Defender, same deal as the previous). Leaders and Defenders are incommensurate, because you can't objectively put both of them on a single metric and truly capture what makes each of them worthwhile. Yet both of them are, quite transparently, extremely valuable to have in an adventuring group.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7prrWqKmlnF6kv6h706GpnpmUqHyotdWeZJqknGKzornIpaCaqqNiwamxjKegppqcmnqmv8Kap55lkZe2rbXTsmVvcGBuf3J7z5qenmVi