I feel they’re made too intentionally dumb that it makes fights with them uninteresting.

As stated by Monsier Meuble in their thread on a French version of the 3.5 E monster manual:

Indeed, he’s cold-themed. He starts life with an immunity to cold (and a corresponding vulnerability to fire) and Icewalking, allowing to adhere to any icy surface with no regard for the inclination of said surface (this include being upside down on a frozen ceiling ; this put in mind one of such dragon having contracted the local kobold tribe to trap literally every square of the floor of his lair while he himself circulates on the ceiling and walls to meet the intruding PCs ; or, for purely aesthetic reasons, while they cross a frozen lake, the PCs realize that something is walking in their steps on the other side of the ice (at least a Huge dragon with Water Breathing) ). Later it will acquire Fog Cloud thrice a day to make to blind everybody with Blind Sense (and still be able to drop his breath cone on a zone anyway), Gust Of Wind thrice a day (probably while shouting something, anything), Freezing Fog that is like Solid Fog but also covers anything it touches with ice, just so the dragon is still at home even if you choose your own battlefield, Wall Of Ice for breaking the party (and, in an incongruous scenario in which the PCs managed to stop the dragon from flying, still giving him some manoeuvrability) and finally, as a Great Wyrm, Control Weather once a day to show those pathetic mortal druids who thought they could have a nice winter for once.

Really, with those capacities, I can imagine a “fun” dungeon-fleeing game, were the murderhobos enter an apparently normal grotto with no appearance of ice or anything like that, a few obvious traps here and there, only a few wandering monsters, until finding the Lair, with a surprise white dragon at the bottom announcing “Let’s play tag. I’m it. I give you thirty seconds.” before dropping his powers to turn the tunnels into an icy, fog-filled death-trap where the dragon can come from the ceiling and the chasms and rifts the group barely paid attention to when coming in.

Alas, the text itself insists that the white dragon is not clever, no even cunning, only ferocious and bestial, and that frost giants hunt them as game animals or to make them guard dogs.

I’m fine with them being “dimmer” than other dragons as an energy saving adaptation, but a well fed one or one that has to deal with being prey to giants should be craftier and capable of traps. Their downfall should likely be in most cases that they are used to finding challenge in opponents that are their size or larger, so adventurers are an outside context problem they may underestimate or not be mentally prepared for the tactics they use.

Also, I can’t help but think of them as the most playful of the chromatic dragons ever since I read how they happily frolic in water.

Still, there is the issue of their breath weapon not being completely effective in their biome. and how adventurers will already have cold resistant spells prepared just for the environment. I feel a secondary breath weapon of hailstones would help, allowing a thematic method of bludgeoning damage.  

edit: Also they are written very inconsistently. Are they honey badgers with a photographic memory, or will they yield and submit to another that defeats them?

edit 2:  Commentary from  the user Sleeper in the  same thread

I’m not a fan of the some of the granted powers given to dragons in later editions. For the white dragon, it’s the icewalking ability.

A dragon that skitters across the icy translucent ceiling, like a giant spider on a bed of glass? That’s cool.

But making every white dragon a cross between a water strider, a drop-bear and Legolas really changes how they fit into the world.

I’d prefer some guidelines on how to give each dragon their own unique schtick, instead of giving all white dragons a once-cool trick