I very much love the Red Box, myself.
- It's extremely affordable.
- I love the hero and monster tokens.
- I love the dungeon map.
- I was sucked deeply into the adventure from the first moments on the trade road.
- I've run several sessions with it for my son, his friend, and my wife has now joined in. Everyone has absolutely loved the adventure.
Sure, there are three or so errors, but none are hard to figure out. And yes, it would be great to have character creation info without having to go through the adventure, but really once you're to that point you're pretty much ready to move beyond the box anyway. But I myself learned a great deal about all of the featured races and classes by going through and creating characters for every combination, and had a wonderful Zen experience taking the time to do so.
As for the PF box, I've checked it out and think it's good and all, but I despise the mat that won't lay flat with its prominent creases and is a slick, reflective surface. I also
very much prefer the flat D&D tokens to the way out of proportion stand ups with PF. The D&D ones just do what they're supposed to do... represent. The PF ones sort of attempt to actually look like a creature standing there... well, if a one inch square represents 5 feet then those are some mighty tall people. I also despise Wayne Reynolds art, so there's that.
Anyway, I sure do hope this Red Box stock issue gets resolved soon... I'd like to have a couple more of them for loaners to get others into it.