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Top five in no order of preference. 

1) A system of  determining levels of success for non combat challenges. ie. Did the group roleplay the scenario unexpectedly well, mediocre or lousy which gives them a multiplier on the bonus xp of the given scenario. The players worked well as a team and integrated good roleplaying techniques, and came up with ingenuitive strategy rated "well" so thats a 1.5x xp modifier (mediocre x1, lousy x0.5). This not only instigates the players to roleplay and use that imagination of theirs, but not stick so hard and fast to the listed "skills" on their character sheets....it also immediately endorses xp for things other than combat. I love the game for the intellectual challenge....and find almost no challenge at all in making a really dangerous character....sure its fun mowing down everything in sight for a few sessions, but then it gets old so the game needs to mix it up. Giving individual xp bonuses is a good thing (i'm sure Martha would agree), if you're good at what you do, then you should reap the rewards...if some people outdistance others at the table in xp/levels...then so be it.

2) A system that can be either grid OR imagination that can easily adapt to either method. 1e had this but most people i know favoured the "no miniature" method of roleplaying. But given this, there should be no grid at all on the map shown to the players or else it should be less of a concern. If your character wants to "hold the tunnel" how can he if he's stuck to one side of the 10 foot wide tunnel on the 5' grid (DM: "some mysterious force will not allow you to stand there...... at the junction of the 4 squares!!!!!").....it turns into too much of a chess game and loses the mystique of simply focusing on the story or the cinematic description of the DM.

3) bring back "space required" on weapons. I know we play a fantasy game (and are suspending reality for the sake of much of the game), but i get more enjoyment out of it when we don't have to stretch reality into absolute nonsense. (ok, 2 fighters in the front line are using a flail+hammer and a footman's pick+spiked buckler) Its not about if they can wield 2 weapons each at a time but that theres more room needed to wield them than space allows when they stand directly side by side. The character with the 16' spear (long spear) never seems to have a problem turning around in a 10' wide x 10' high tunnel if the monsters come up from behind the group. A character wielding a large ball/chain weapon needs room and can't wield it properly with 2 of his buddies right next to him.

4) huge cost on magic items and give them an aquisition rating or rarity rating difficulty (kind of like the target number a runner/fixer needs in the Shadowrun game system to hunt down goods "post-character creation")....the players shouldn't be able to approach any "magic item shop" like its a buffet except maybe only the most mundane of "magic" items can be common (ie. healing potions and other common low-end potions/remedies)...huge, serious items usually will demand a trade of a like power scale item and sometimes with an extra fee.....by the same token if players want to dump an item....somebody very well could/should offer something up in exchange at a local trade vendor (the vendor taking a portion of the fee for being the "middle-man") (so there would be a 1d4 roster of tradable items in a small town, 2d8 in a large city, for instance, DM rolls some random gear &/or uses local NPCs with items listed in module...module will even list items that key NPCs might trade for). Lets bring the "wow" (not WoW) factor back into really cool items...old school ring of vampiric regeneration!! They just have to remain extremely rare. Spells fall into this category as well, L1-5 purchasable, L6-7 good trades+coin, L8 very powerful item, L9 not tradeable unless you are trading artifacts or level/stat gaining books.

5) bring back aging when casting haste/ressurection/wish etc....serious spells that play with time and lives and extreme powers should take their toll on the caster. With this toll, the priesthood can demand huge prices on a group of adventurers purely for having them take 4 years off their high/grand priests' life expectancy for having done the ressurection. IN this regard reinstate the "higher a level the dead character is, the more power it takes to tear them from their afterlife, which in turn takes a heavier toll on the priest casting the ressurection" in essence it can be scaled to level (level 1-5, 1d2 years aging, 6-12 1+1d3y, 13-18 3+1d2y, etc etc...you get the idea). This rule limits the overzealous use(or misuse) of big magics and turns the game of ressurecting a PC of level 25+ from a pocket-change inconvenience to a more serious matter of massive investment (insert quest spells/geas here, lose extremly powerful item...low level groups have to pool their resources to bring poor Kenny back from the dead etc).


now a few things that would be pleasing:

6) bring back speed factor, slower weapons should be ...well in a manner of pointing out the obvious, generally slower....and wielding 2 weapons should be a smidge slower than the slowest of the paired weapons.

7) print every creature that was ever listed in every D&D edition including
-various system origins
-every creature listed in dragon magazines or modules or any other hidden back source
-complete ecologies ever printed on them (and what back sources can expand on these), we as the DMs have to bring more life into our stories so we need more than just a list of combat stats, it makes the world feel more alive.
-all their species categories/multi categories also noted...some things might belong to a couple or few categories (amorphoid/abberation/humanoid/giant etc) and its good to have all that listed in the entry
-actual pronunciation listed beside their name (with possible additional pronunciations...drow as in cow...or drow as in row your boat!! I like the bovine dark elf)
-the creator of the creature (if known) at the bottom of the page
-add in every bit of pertinent info on the monster entries that can be (demon, daemon, devil even if you want to call them all batezu/tannari or however you spell them etc)
-i'd seriously pay good money for this compilation alone   
Lets just see all the creatures in all their splendor and be able to actually pronounce their names collectively (*chuckle*)