That's a pretty common joke in our group, but the other day one of my players made the very interesting suggestion to start a campaign where all the points and experience were awarded to the group rather then a particular character.
For example, instead of giving three players 150 points each, the group gets 450 to divide in whatever way they want. Maybe someone wants to play a more experienced Gandalf level character then the players decide as a group to give him 300 points and divide the rest equally.
The same thing happens for experience, say the group gets 15 xp for an adventure, they could split it equally, or give the 300 point character 1 and split the rest between the 75 point characters so they advance more rapidly.
I don't know how it would work in practice but it is an intriguing idea.
It reminded me of the fact that the main characters for Star Wars were auditioned as a group rather then individually. One Han, one Luke, one Leia, and 1 1/2 Chewie.