Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
To me, where they failed is in not making the rest of the classes as minimal. The D&D I'm waiting for has the player of a wizard tell the DM he's making an illusion, roll an illusion check, wait for the outcome from the DM, and move on. Endless lists of discrete, specific, and detailed spells are not what I'm playing D&D for. Nor powers. Nor maneuvers.
No offense intended by this, and I almost never say this, but that wouldn't be D&D. D&D is never going to have spells work that way, nor should it. That's a generic fantasy game, not a specific fantasy game like D&D. In fact, you could do that game with Mutants & Masterminds (a generic superheros game).