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Great thread!

D&D has been a factor for my entire life, right from the original “Red Box” basic set and “Blue Box” expert set.  I mostly avoided AD&D proper, but pounced in with sword swinging in 2E.  I devoured as much 3E, and 3.5, as I could possibly get my hands on.  4E surprised me when it came out.  When 4E was released, though I still had great affection for the 3E stuff, I was willing to take a look at it, and even hedged my bets that I would like it by picking up the CE version of the PHB and DMG.

Something about 4E didn’t strike the right chord with me.  I could never really put my finger on it, and so I pretty much abandoned D&D altogether.

But I came back.  Hoo boy did I come back.  I'm sure I must have blown about $1,000 in the past 4 weeks alone on 4E stuff …absolutely ridiculous.  And I’m looking at actually starting up some games with my friends again.

I'm still a little put off by 3 things right now:

#1.  The forums are generally pretty toxic.  There's still a lot of "gamers" (my peeps) here who are great, but there are some really vocal, angry people on the boards (not just the WotC site, but other sites too).  So the overall mood is a little depressing, from a fan standpoint.  It actually makes me less excited about the game because there are fewer people that I can have a civilized discussion about it with.

#2.  WotC seems to be having some issues with their PR.  Some of this is blown out of proportion by the forum posters, but I'm not sure if they have really figured out the best way to deal with the forums aspect of the website effectively.  To be fair - it's a REALLY hard thing to do.

#3.  Art Direction – More of a "nuanced" thing.  I love the looks they gave the different races and classes - humans, tieflings, and female dwarves are particular great standouts.  My one complaint is that I'd personally like to see more artwork in the books that "tells a story" - 95% of the artwork is pure figure drawing, with no setting, scenery, background ... you get the idea.  I think they swung a little too far away from that sort of thing (but can understand why they did it.)  When they have those types of pictures - they've had some really great pieces!

My take on 4E?  I’m a big fan.  Mechanically, I love it.  As a player and DM, I think it's a great system, and addresses a lot of the "holes" I saw in my beloved prior editions.

5E?  Hey, I'll take a look at it.  Though it took me a few years to get over my shock of 4E, the brand hasn't let me down yet.  I'm sorry that some people had what seems to be such a bad experience with it.

Also - just in case it doesn't get said enough: to all the folks at WotC who built 4E, good job!  I like what you did with the place.  Also, here's my bucket of money (please don't tell my wife!)

Some random thoughts

I've only played 3.5 and 4e, and I like 4e.

I think there were some significant problems (expertise and improved defenses feats come to mind), and some bugs which should have been ironed out beforehand.

I also liked the new martial classes in essentials.  At first I thought essentials was stupid, but I came around after trying out a Scout.  I think that's how it should have been done from the start for some of the classes, just to give the different classes a different feel.  The Psionic classes and Essentials proved that you can be balanced and give everyone cool stuff to do without a slavish adherence to AEDU or whatever mechanic you choose.  So, knowing that now, I think it would be nice in 5e to give each power source a different "feel" by having each power source do something different.

I'm a little ambivalent on the format of essentials (little softcover books vs. big hardcover books).  I like the big Player's Handbooks, but I also think a little book you can pass around the table easily is a good thing.

I like inherent bonuses.  I like to play characters who are badass because they're badass, not because they happen to own a badass sword.  My opinion is that magic items should be rare and coveted, and their property should be more valuable than their enhancement bonus.  A magic item that helps you do something cool is better than boring old +1 to hit.

I like how 4e skills work, it seems to make a lot of sense.  Although I would add a couple new skills in - "crafting" comes to mind, because using thievery to fix a wagon is just... dumb.

Skill challenges - I don't know if it's just me, but I've just never been able to do them right.

I think 5e should have more support for "off the grid" play than 4e.  I did one or two encounters "off the grid" in 4e, and it worked ok with players who were open to the idea, but it was still a little tricky.

I think 4e could have been just a bit more polished.  It's tricky because there's always some munchkin out there who is able to find some game-breaking combo that no one thought of, but I think there's a few things that shouldn't be allowed to exist (frostcheese, I'm looking in your direction), and some unclear wording in a few places.

I'd like less errata if possible, and some kind of system so I don't feel like my book is worthless because of errata (Martial Power's Dual Strike, I'm looking in your direction).  Perhaps each book should include a sleeve, and Wizards should make .pdfs of errata publicly available on their website that people can print and put in that sleeve, and in the book cross out the offending section and write "see errata 4.2" or something to that effect.  People who buy the dead-tree version of D&D should be able to get up to speed on errata just as easily as people who use mainly online tools like the character builder.

I'll probably stick with 4e as long as I can get a group together.  I'll try out 5e, but to be honest I'm not optimistic.  First off, I'm already about 90% satisfied with 4e, so I don't have a whole lot of incentive to change unless I find myself alone in the wilderness after everyone else has moved on. 

Secondly, I just have a bad feeling that this whole "modular" thing will turn 5e into a big ungainly mess, and instead of pleasing everyone and bringing everyone into 5e, Wizards will come up with something that no one is really happy with and that will have trouble winning people over from other editions.  Wizards is basically going to be trying to convice pastrami-lovers and egg salad-lovers to both switch over to a modular sandwich with pastrami and egg salad modules when pastrami and egg salad sandwiches are still on the menu.  And lets face it: the modules probably won't have as much pastrami or egg salad as the originals because the efforts of the developers are going to be split between pastrami and egg salad.  So, why would a pastrami-lover like myself order a modular sandwich with pastrami when I can order a pastrami sandwich which is better?

I'll also see if I can score some old 4e books on the cheap when people are making the switch - mostly campaign settings, but I'd be interested in anything that completes my "collection" for the right price.

All in all, as much as I have a feeling that it may go down in history as the red-headed bastard child of D&D, I like 4e.  I think it was a big step forward from 5e, and Essentials was also a great addition.  I was about 80% satisfied with 4e when it first came out, and I'm about 90% satisfied with 4e right now, which is a lot more than I was for 3.5.  I'd much rather see 5e be a system that builds on 4e, starts from the beginning with everything we've learned over the past few years of collective experience with 4e, and fixes that other 20% right from the start than be a system that tries to be everything to everyone.