Fuxkin’ Wizards are a gods-damned drain on the party. Lucky if they get one spell off while they spend the rest of their actions moving out of the way and making other members spend their actions on helping and reviving. Yeah sure that one spell they manage to get off is fucking dope but I’ll take a sorcerer over a wizard any day of the week even at disadvantage.
I think it's a problem just because of changing expectations for the game. If you're playing modern D&D, where combat is supposed to be balanced, character death is rare, everyone levels at roughly the same rate, yeah, it sucks to be an early level wizard or a late level fighter who can't keep up with the rest of the party. I get why the trend has been to try to balance them, even if it's a bit wonky. I get it, it's hard to do.
But if you're playing it in more old-school way, where it's more gamey, it makes a LOT more sense. Combat isn't necessarily balanced, character death is more on the table, you're more likely to have a rotating cast, and parties can have different levels between the members. So the late-game magic-user is the reward for playing the class that's weaker earlier on, and the fighter is great for jumping into the action.
That's how I felt with Gale in Bg3. First part of the game I was always trying to save his scrawny ass, but once he's leveled up the man is a weapon of magical destruction.
The DMs I’ve always played with run a meat grinder for a campaign, character death is a regular thing. We don’t get attached to them. So there’s rarely any characters higher then lvl 5-8 or so. Maybe you’re right and maybe that’s why but I fucking hate wizards man.
How are sorcerers any better any low level survivability?
The main difference between them is sorcerers get a free tricks in meta magic while knowing 15 spells over their career. Wizards can learn ALL of their spells with a little monetary investment or judicious application of fireball to enemy wizards.