Is anyone else here an old D&D gamer, brought back into the family because of the awesomeness of 5E?
Or does anyine else just want to be happy with me that D&D brings people like me back?
Yes. I think there are rather a lot of old gamers, like you and like me, who skipped 3rd and 4th edition entirely but have heard enough good things about 5th edition to pick it up and try it. I've been away from (A)D&D since about the time when the Player's Option series started coming out, or maybe it was the later Darksun material (The Will and the Way was the high point for me, the revised Dark Sun boxed set was a low point). Anyway, 5th edition has brought me back to the game after a decade and a half away.
Welcome back!
P.S. Bonus comment, my impressions of 5E: it plays like a more-mobile version of core AD&D2. By "more mobile" I mean that the new (action + item interaction + movement + bonus action + reaction + concentration) framework has new and interesting complications compared to the old (move up to your half movement and attack, or stay put and cast a spell) of AD&D2. I hated, hated, hated the Players Option take on character customization (why should some fighters randomly get magic resistance just for gaining fighter levels? makes no sense) but for some reason in 5E, similar choices don't bother me, perhaps because they are baked into the game from the outset rather than tacked on in an expansion book. The biggest downside to 5E in my mind is the nerfs to the magic system: wizards in 5E are less proactive and more reactive, with more emphasis on throwing Fireballs at visible threats as opposed to sneaking into the enemy base as a flying, invisible, one-inch-tall wizard who lays Fire Traps all over the place. This might have been enough to turn me off 5E completely, if not for the fact that it turns out that there are still some interesting tricks that wizards can prepare ahead of time which do last longer than 10 minutes, ranging from a Demiplane full of Tarrasque to Polymorph abuse to Longstrider to Death Ward (from a cleric) + Magic Jar. This is enough to scratch the itch for wizardry that the GURPS magic system never did--which is itself the single biggest factor leading to me coming back to D&D in the first place, since I never found another game with a magic system that I liked as much. Anyway, 5E is close enough on that score, and although I wish tactical combat had more options along the lines of 2E's Complete Fighter's Handbook[1], overall 5E is quite good at creating the kind of experience that I'm looking for, as long as I totally ignore the CR-based encounter-building rules in favor of a more AD&D-style encounter philosophy.
[1] In particular, Disarm and Parry maneuvers. The DMG has a Disarm option (opposed Athlethics check I think) and I'm considering adding a Parry maneuver of some sort. Perhaps I will base it off of Defensive Duelist and say you can sacrifice one or more attacks in order to give yourself +Proficiency to AC against that same number of melee attacks from a specific enemy; this makes Defensive Duelist essentially like a feat that gives you a free attack using your reaction and converts it immediately into a Parry.
