I gave up learning new systems after I spent lots of money on 3.5e books and then 4e came out. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to spend money it just seemed that another big overhaul of all the rules felt like the beginning of the end for the game being anything more than cardboard and paper for sale. My imagination seemed to be able to fill in any gaps that wizards of the coast seemed intent on selling me.
I have a vast library of 2e books that I promise you are still "good enough".
WotC is good at churning out paper but it's certainly in the interest of that particular entity's continued existence. Debatable if it is for anyone else but I'm sure that anyone consistently playing simply gets dragged along with the trend of "the new shiny".
I always thought the writing was better in 2e but the mechanics were better in 3.5e. But 4e just seemed like the mechanics were different but not better for some reason other than they could sell new books to old players.
