Hi, I’m taylor, and I’ve never like 3.x edition. (hi taylor)
anyway, 3.5 had so many issues that it was never fun. you got tons of skills, but you HAD to put your skill points in certain areas or your character was in trouble (i hated that rouges had a TON of skill points, then HAD to put the skill points in certain skills to ensure they could do the things expected of them at 6th level...)
There was no point in making a ranged attacker (either with bow or with rays) unless you took the feats to counteract all of the penalties (ok, so -4 for melee, -4 for my friend there, -4 for...)
3.5 went a few steps too far in trying to make DnD a reality based game. it isn’t. it is a fantasy game in a fantasy world with fantastic people living in it (hence the reason illusions are so tough to adjudicate.)
Second winds let clerics do something more than heal. they allow the players to understand the abstractness of HPs, and remind them hit points are not life points. I compared it to Rocky Balboa… Tenth Round… clubber lang pounding him… then he thinks of Adrian and Mick and suddenly gets a second wind on life…
It was also fantastic that the players went through the first three encounters plus a town without stoppping for the night. I love the idea of never having to deal with “we wake up at 9am, walk for 30 minutes, get into a 10 round, one minute fight, and then camp for the night at 9:31 am…
What is amusing most of all to me is the cycle of “they can’t take my DnD away from me” I have seen a NUMBER of times now…
When second edition came out all I heard was, “No way i’m giving up my attack tables!”
When third edition came out all I heard was, “Give up THACO? all XP on one table? oh, they are just over simplifying the game! And what the heck is up with a Dwarf being allowed to be a wizard/paladin???”
Now that fourth is all but out… yeah 
you get my point.
Taylor
ps - i had NO idea that josh was older than me! huzzah!
