The disparity that comes from random character generation was very obvious in Villains and Vigilantes, but we found ways around it that enabled players to have useful combinations of powers that still encourage randomness. The best compromise was to give all PCs the same number of randomly rolled powers (not the recommended 1d+1), but give them a choice of trading in any two randomly generated powers for a hand-picked one. This left us with a group with a variety of abilities, without anyone having a totally useless PC.

Where I really miss random character generation, though, is as a GM - particularly in superhero RPGs. I once whipped up a computer program that randomly generated villains' stats and abilities ad infinitum, leaving me to pick out the most interesting ones and come up with names, origin stories, and crimes they could specialize in. Sure, some of them were pretty weird, but damn it was fun.