The Ugly: There was a lot of silliness in the "known world". there was a wizard villain named "Bargle". A lot of weird monsters. Like, a lot. Also, "% Liar"...
I don't understand why Bargle is the in the "Ugly" section rather than the "Amazing" section. Other than that, I endorse this post.
Let me add my lurker's worth of two cp. I honestly can say I really like each edition, and that each provides something that the others don't. I've either played or dabbled in each in the last two years alone. What I'm offering here is very subjective. I'd like to note that my contribution is also colored by my newfound laziness as a DM: since beginning doctoral study a few years ago, my impulse for world-building and prep in general has plummeted. That'll likely influence it as well.
BECMI:
The Good: Probably my favorite edition/version. It plays fast, and its lack of "depth" offers a sort of narrative immediacy that having too many other media (lots of dice rolls, minis, etc.) can get in the way of (imho). Further, ime, there's a great deal more parity between the classes (except the poor thief, perhaps) than in most editions. House ruling is so easy and fun in BECMI because of the lack of depth. House ruling gets particularly troublesome in subsequent editions (not that AD&D is subsequent, but you know what I mean).
While the often antagonistic tone of a lot of the OSR blogs can be a turn off, I think they offer a way to engage with old rule sets as something other than anachronisms. The blogs of Philotomy Jurament and Jeff Rients are some good examples here.
Bargle's pretty awesome, too.
The Bad: Lack of depth, sadly; it's a double-edged sword. One of my friends/players who's also a BECMI fan has compared some fights to Rock 'em Sock 'em robots. I'm not sure I agree, but I think it's a somewhat fair critique. High level play becomes a bit of a challenge to run as well; it becomes hard to anticipate what'll challenge the PCs without smoking them outright.
The Ugly: I'll trot out the usual suspects here. Level limits. Race-as-class can be a turn off, but it didn't really bother my group. Again, some stuff from the OSR (like Labyrinth Lord's Advanced Edition Characters) can ameliorate some of these criticisms.
1e and 2e
I know among Dragonsfooters, lumping these two together would be blasphemy, but whatever. I think these two editions have more in common than any other two. That said, I think the differences that everyone above have pointed out are cogent. I probably play these the least, and if I had to choose between them, I'd go 1e, though 2e is really where I cut my teeth.
The Good: A bit more depth (granularity, whatever you want to call it) than BECMI in some ways. Race and class combos. A modularity to the rules that makes it pretty easy to dump what you don't like while preserving the structure of the whole. Immediacy and fast play. Good/great for sandboxing.
The Bad: Despite the fact that many people single out 3rd ed as a villain for class imbalance, it was pretty easy to cheese stuff out in these editions. I can understand the OSR's rebuttal to this claim (hell, there's a good poll on the subject on this page, still), but I still don't like it. I also dislike the "no fun" approach to balance-over-time: you suck for x amount of levels to become the only one who has fun in the end game. I'm probably coming off as harsher than I intent to here. Oh, and different categories of damage for S-M and L creatures. Huh?
The Ugly: The organization in those books can be...daunting. Inaccessible. Some of the rules were arcane (and not in the cool sense) and often contradictory. Much of the Bad and Ugly from BECMI can be placed here as well.
3e
God, where to begin? The edition that made me fall in love with D&D all over again. The edition in which I ran my most successful campaigns. The edition that drove me insane (all over again). Before 4e was announced, I was pulling my hair out trying to make 3e play differently. So when the announcement was made, I was really *really* excited for it.
The Good: There's a lot. Retains a lot of the sacred cows that for me make D&D D&D (ymmv, of course). The flexibility in character creation and the meaningful incorporation of skills into the rest of the system was an admirable feat (excuse my puns) of design. A depth and complexity that encourages tactical play. A more "hypermediate" (to borrow a term from Bolter and Grusin) experience than other editions; more platforms/mini-games (not *minis* games) to engage with: extended skill rolls, minis-oriented combat, trap disarms, etc. The settings (particularly the earliest form of the Forgotten Realms)
The Bad: Okay, what exactly can my Fiendish half-minotaur Fighter/Wizard/Dragon Shaman/Psionicist whose feats enable power ups except on Wednesdays during a new moon do? Ugh. High level play can be pretty messy here, too. I remember a PC casting Shapechange during a dramatic fight brought the game to a crashing halt while everybody broke out the calculators. If you don't like the notion of Magic Wal-Mart (tm), it can be difficult to house-rule it away in light of the CRs anticipate PCs using it. Multi-classing was a double edged sword in this edition, too.
The Ugly: Splat-book power creep. Precocious Apprentice, anyone? How 'bout combining it in ridiculous ways with other splat-books that didn't account for it (ad or post hoc)? While this kinda thing wasn't really a problem in my group, those who knew how to do it did it well, and were rewarded. I dunno.
4e
This is a frustrating animal for me. We're giving it another go pretty soon. I love it on paper, but in play it gets tedious for me. I think, however, a lot of that has to do with the modules (KotS and TL, I'm looking at you).
The Good: I like the depth and breadth of combat options, the parity between classes, rituals, the cosmology, the more stream-lined skill system. I also like the art. The ease of prep. After a 10+ year hiatus, I like Forgotten Realms again!
The Bad: the depth and breadth of combat options. I know this is a matter of taste, but the length and involvement of combat really pulls me out of the narrative, both as a PC and a DM. It can be tricky to build a character that is optimized but outside of some of the operating assumptions of the rules (like say, a fighter with anything but an 8 intelligence).
The Ugly: Keeping track of everyone's statuses can be really f'ing annoying, particularly with players who are casual at best. Long combats eat up my limited (these days) playing time. This has the effect of pretty decompressed storytelling (if I can borrow a meme from comics). Does that make sense? I mean, it seems like less tends to happen in a session for us. This might not be a bad thing for some groups, but it rubs me the wrong way for some reason. This is weird of course, because this is exactly how I run Mutants and Masterminds, and it's fine. I think a lot of it has to do with my "old school" approach to D&D. It's something that I'm going to try to account for when I restart the upcoming 4e campaign.
Whew! Sorry this went on so long!
