Greetings Mr. Gygax!
May this message find you well. I have been an player of Dungeons and Dragons for more than 10 years. Much of what I have observed in the changes through the various editions, materials, and mechanics I have enjoyed and have had many good gamining experiences with others, both as a fellow PC and as a DM. There have also been hick-ups along the way. Certain mechanics could and should be done more thoughtfully, with a closer attention payed toward cross-class equity of powers and abilities, and tools to help players develop a good concept for their character, not what combination of race, skills, spells makes the best number crunching exercise. One concern to me of late has been this tendency to make the DM a robot at the utter mercy of suppliments and dare I say "munchkin-esque" players. Case in point the recent Monster Manual IV insulted not only my expectations of what a monster manual should be, but also my intelligence. Yes as advertized the monsters were "easy" to run, if one enjoyed guessing the hit die type of creatures and hit point break down. They also redundant classed monsters, unmemmorable and made for a generally "underwhelming" experience. This has not been the first instance of this trend. Providing sound mechanics for players to try new options is good. It is what has enabled the game to evolve and thrive. But at times it almost feels like a straight jacket or that as DM's we are being spoon-fed everything. In other words it is as if DM's are no longer encouraged to come up with creative solutions on their own. In some instances when a brave DM peers beyond the margins of text rules, there are the hyper-reactive snapping maws of rules lawyers and other bugbears of free thinking.
My personal taste is that I enjoy the 3E/3.5 mechanic - still it has room for improvement - but I would like to see some sort of return of DM authority, or at least an environment where PCs and DMs can corporately solve problems creatively and imagine fun innovations. Within your enduring gaming experience, have you noticed a similar trend? What do you forsee happening within the current edition that will change this for the better, or not?
