I think rippletoe is suitable only for beginners, reasons:

1. The program takes newbie gain into consideration, that is you can increase ur poundage very fast when u just started training. This is because you are learning to do the exercise more efficiently. For people who already familiar with the exercise, u cannot advance as quick.

2. Rippletoe does not ramp the weight. You use the same weight for 3X5. For advance people, this will usually mean either using a poundage too high, and risk hurting urself, or using a poundage too low to benefit from it.

3. This is a program that concentrate on strength. It will not make you look like a bodybuilder, but it will only make you grow when you are still a beginner. For advance people, you need the volume in your training to induce "pump" to grow.

4. If you want to burn fat, then the volume of Rippletoe is too low to burn anything.