If you follow that link and look in the comments section, a guy named Anders sums up a lot of my own personal feelings on the subject (I'm 27, so I could be considered part of the younger generation). Before I get into that, though, I'd also mention the phenomenon of how older media can end up attracting younger fans years or even decades after it was originally produced. I'm surprised at how many people my age and younger I've come across who are fans of the Beatles or ABBA, Sherlock Holmes and other Victorian-era literature, older cartoons, and other things like that. It could be the same thing in RPGs-younger people stumble across these things either on their own, through their parents or other mediums- something that's only become easier in the Internet age-and become fans of it themselves.
Referring back to what Anders said in the above link, I'm in kind of the same boat he/she is in that I'm more than a little turned off by the prevalence of super-powered abilities to avoid death, the wide variety of bizarre nonhuman races, and magic items being treated as tradable commodities, particularly from 3E onwards where non-spellcasters needed to be decked out like Christmas trees in magic items if they wanted to keep up with the advanced style of play.
The more gritty, lower-key style of 1E, where magic items are fewer (relatively so, at least), it's easier to die, dozens of different fantastical races did not openly walk the streets, and there are fewer super-powered characters running around, all appeal to guys like Anders and me far more than does the more World of Warcraft-inspired style we see today, with the inclusion of tieflings, dragonborn and magic swords being a dime a dozen.
As well, I have to admit that the restrictions and quirks of older editions appeal to me as a writer and give the setting its own distinct flavor, for all that it's supposed to be plain-vanilla fantasy. The Vancian magic system, and the idea that dwarves and halflings have problems with it, both give them distinct traits and a means of further developing the game.
Dwarves may not typically be druids in the same way that humans or elves can...so why not play a druid of the hills or the underground, rather than the typical forest druid that's based in the RAW? Being less reliant on magic, dwarves and gnomes have come to rely on engineering and technology to get the job done for them, while halflings have played to their strengths in having mutually beneficial relationships with other races, trading their own particular skills in agriculture, textiles or animal husbandry in exchange for physical protection.
And what kind of effects will the Vancian magic system have on the development of counterparts of non-European cultures? Many First Nations didn't have books as we know them today, but cultures patterned after them in a D&D universe will have had to develop their own types of spellbooks if they want to use magic. Do they obtain paper and ink from trade with other cultures, or do they make their own substitutes, perhaps using hides as paper, sinews as binding, and berry juices or animal fat as ink? Either way, this will have spurred the development of writing, and so they'll eventually create their own written scripts like any European-based culture would.
