I'm one of the 1979 players who burned out on 3/3.5 after 4 years of it - mainly based on prep time and length of combat, with other (less important) quibbles with the rules themselves. SO, I found C&C just as the first printing PHB came out.
I got it, and my players reluctantly agreed that if I'm the DM, I choose the system, and I was just never going to DM 3e again (though I'll play). The attempt lasted several sessions. From session 1, my players were appalled with the editing of the book itself, and it became such a joke that they gave the rules no slack. They read out their favorite typos and misspellings, made jokes about how they'd rather play a game designed for 12 year olds (3.5) than written by 12 year olds, etc.
I think C&C is a decent game as a very bare-bones engine for fantasy role playing. There's no innovation (the Siege engine is more a substitute that resolves several 1e mechanisms than an improvement on these) - but innovation wasn't really the point.
My players having finally absolutely rebelled against C&C, we began playing 1e. I found that a bit difficult to "re-learn," but after a couple of sessions I was working 1e pretty well (I recommend OSRIC for a 1e re-learner before proceeding to the old books). Then I basically took OSRIC, changed it up to use advancing AC, added a house rules specialist mage system, a tailored thief skills build-out, and a simplified initiative system. It's this house-ruled version of 1e that we play now. I used the base of the OSRIC document to actually integrate the house rules into a rule book.