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Huh, I played every edition of D&D and AD&D, and the assumptions you make of older editions are not very accurate at all.  You talk of how 3rd ed was suppossed to be streamlined version from 2nd ed.  You do realize you are way, way, way, off.  3rd ed, was to get rid of the 200 + books that was making up 2nd ed.  That was what they meant by streamlined. 

Example in 2ed, you wanted to play a melee charcter type.  Ok, you start with the PHB or Oriental Adventures to get a general calss, say a melee class.  Then you went to one of the varied Class handbooks.  Lets see, fighter handbook, ranger handbook, bard handbook, paladin handbook, druid handbook, or thief handbook.  Oh wait, you also had the complete gladiator handbook, Barbarian's handbook, and Ninja handbook.  Now, add in that every race had a handbook that contained some melee classes.  So complete book of Dwarves, Elves, gnomes and halflings, and humanoids to name a few. 

If that wasnt enough choices for your melee type, there was also certain realm books that contained choices as well.  The Forgotten Realms had one that was made up entirely of Holy Warriors for each of their gods.  

Now, once you finally picked one type of melee you wanted to play from a handbook, lets say we are playing close to the end of 2nd edition. So add in player combat and tactics book and player skill option book, just to add a little flair and way more rules to use. 

Those are just for melee class types to pick from.  Want to play a magic user?  I have 4 different wizard spell compendium books with small print to leaf through to pick spells, or 3 Preist compendium books. 

We still havent even touched magic items for your character yet either if jumping in at higher levels.  So flip through all 4 Encyclopedia of magic books, Arms and Equipment guide, Tome of magic, book of artifacts (if high level), and begin to pick a few items.  Again, consult certain realm books and class handbooks, as they contained items as well specific for a class or a realm.   

All the different books by the end was too much for anyone new to jump right in and play.  And keep in mind, I left out quite a few complete books, the stupid complete wizard and cleric spell card sets, and barely mentioned all the different realms stuff, Planescape, Forgotten Realms, GrayHawk, Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Lankmar, and that be a dragon box set realm.  Which, each box set had extra classes, magic items, and rules in them. Let alone magic items from adventures and adventure box sets like Undermountain, Undermountain II, the rod of seven parts, return to tomb of horrors, temple of elemental evil, and such.  

You talk about how you now spend a few hours looking through forums for builds and character designs?  If you had a gaming group with all the books from 2nd ed, it could take days of researching books to come up with a character.  Heaven forbid you died at a higher level and had to create a new character at lvl 17.   3rd edition did streamline the game, but not the way you are trying to portray it.  It wasnt created to make combat and only combat streamlined.  It was created to get rid of the how many books made up 2nd ed.

Aug 20, 2012 -- 9:02AM, LordofKhyber wrote:

Because it's not worth getting into? WotC will just be planning 6E two months after the release of 5E.