Edition has mattered a great deal in my game. My group is composed of a range of players: some have kids, some don't, some are tactical rules nerds, some want RP, and at least one has medication-induced memory issues.
Over the last several years, we've played basic D&D (BECMI/Rule Cyclopedia), 4th ed., Pathfinder, and now 5th edition. All but one of us has played AD&D (either 1st or 2nd ed., or both).*
We had a lot of fun with BECMI/RC, but the players more into the fiddle bits of the rules found it a bit restricting, though not in a deal-breaking way. The more casual players enjoyed it quite a bit, especially with the character sheets that charted THAC0 so they wouldn't have to do the calculations on the fly. VERDICT: Would play/run again.
4th edition was our least favorite as a group. The players who loved tactical rules loved it. My memory-issue gamer dislike how much stuff there was to track with the various abilities. Everyone else, including me, as the GM, were very "meh" on it. VERDICT: Might play for a one-shot, but would not play/run again.
Pathfinder started with a solid concept and a lot of fun (all goblin PCs playing pirates in Skull & Shackles). By about 5th-6th level, almost everyone was starting to get bogged down in stats (and the memory-issue player needed constant help). Our rules tactician loved it, of course. I found game prep, when I strayed from the adventure path or pre-written modules, to be more work than I had time for (I ran into the same problem with 3.X once my life got busy with family obligations and writing). VERDICT: Would play again on a limited basis, but not run. By the way, goblin PCs totally break any stealth-based portions of the Skull & Shackles Adventure Path.
Most of us were skeptical of 5th edition when we started, but it soon became just about everyone's preferred system. It hit the right mix of complex & simple that my group needed. The memory-issue player still gets caught a bit during combat, but not to the extreme she did with 4E & Pathfinder. After a Hoard of the Dragon Queen TPK, they all wanted to return to 5E, rather than another fantasy system. VERDICT: Would play/run again--still am running it, actually.
I've found when the player have issues with the mechanics (for whatever reason), they don't enjoy the game as much. They might still enjoy playing in the group, but the game itself becomes the lesser of the activities that night. I've even observed, when a game has "rules for everything," that some players get too bogged down in what's on the character sheet and forget that there are RP options not tied to a stat or skill (like talking instead of attacking). It doesn't happen all the time, but I have seen people react that way. I think my group is going to get many more years of enjoyment out of 5E (whereas I couldn't end the 4E campaign soon enough and we were almost all burned out by the time we hung up the Pathfinder game).
*As an aside, my
Doctor StrangeRoll blog started as a way to compare the various editions using classic adventures as a baseline. Now it's just my general gaming blog