In the end, it's not the gaming products themselves that get people to the table and keep them there. It's the interpersonal interactions. If I come across a complete newbie who is willing to try, say, a naval game, I better be able to put something in front of him that he can grok. And it better not take 20 hours to play. Likewise, in trying to get my fellow grognards to the table, I better be able to put something out there that everyone will at least sort of like and not feel like bamboo is being shoved under their fingernails every time we resolve a movement phase.
Just a couple of thoughts:
1. I wonder how this thought process works with the thread from a few months ago that implied that before one could pass judgment on 4e they had to play it for 120 hours or some such.
2. I introduced my wife to D&D around 1997-98 with Mentzer's Basic Set. She has played since then but in a very casual manner. She enjoyed 3e but we did play it without a lot of the fiddly rules.
Anecdote Time.
We went to the D&D game day at my FLGS in Richmond, VA. We both played a single character (There were enough people there that they added an extra game for some others and us.) After the play session I was meh but interested in trying some more. She on the other hand was emphatically uninterested. Here's why.
She likes to play fighters for one simple reason; they are simple to play. In all previous editions fighters never had much to worry about except rolling to attack. Many people have bemoaned that fact to the point that in 4e fighters now have a wide assortment of abilities with Vancian restrictions. In a further attempt to add depth to the class they now have a feature called Marking. She asked if she had to keep track of that and I said it looks like it. She spat back "forget that" (not exactly though Morrus' GMa might not appreciate what she really said.) She also did not understand why the fighter's marking and paladin's marking were different if they were called the same thing. I shrugged. When I asked her what she thought about 4e she stuck her tongue out at me.
Several weeks later after reading some threads here about how it was bringing new players either in or old players back after 3e, I asked her if I had started her with this instead of the Mentzer Basic set would she have played, she flat out said no and her reason directly responds to the questions raised in this thread.
She said think about how we played. Twice a month we got together with a CPA and his wife, a master electrician, a bank manager, a gentleman that was working on his doctoral thesis and his wife, and a local actor. We ordered food and everybody brought a bottle of wine. We gathered around 7pm and reconnected, ate, and drank. Half of the session may have been a recollection about an adventure that took place twenty, yes twenty, years ago. Some of those stories got tiring if you were not there.
None of these people cared about rules; it was all about the story. If there were too many rules or the rules got in the way of that collective story, then they had no place. We just liked to roll dice.
While I have rewritten what she said for clarity, it still expresses our general playing style and why a rules-lite system or a modular system that you could add as much too as you want would be superior for my favorite group and us.
Addendum.
While I have lost touch with this group, I am pretty sure they would not have converted to 4e, and I can say that they were not the greatest fans of 3e either. They much preferred what seemed to be a hybrid of 1e and B/X. That's seven people that would not have been part of this "6 million D&D players." I would have grown to like 4e after a time I think.
EDIT: After hitting submit I realized I didn't quite address the thought of D&D being doomed to cult status. It will be forthcoming.
You know, Occam's razor and all. Still, I would like to thank him for commenting on the topic - his analysis is at least interesting. 
