I agree completely.
I don't want to play Gamma World, nor do I want to play Monopoly. I want to play a fantasy RPG full of magic and high adventure.
The streamlined core mechanics of D&D 4e are fantastic. I don't want to go back to TSR-era D&D, as I much prefer the modern approach to game design.
Half of my group of players are casual players who only play the game because their significant others are playing. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have a large enough group to play. I want to be able to give them a "Dungeons & Dragons Player's Book" that they will actually read -- the 368 page Heroes of the Fallen Lands is not that book.
The overly fiddly bits (marks, quarries, curses, condition tracking, one-round buffs, etc) slow down the game and some players get annoyed by having to keep track of them.
A smaller number of more distinct character options (feats, powers, etc) is preferable to a larger number of options that require some degree of system mastery to distinguish between them.
Thirty levels isn't necessarily too many, but it is more than many players will ever get to play through and having character options through 30th level in every book makes them excessively long.
I want to play a D&D game built on the elegant and streamlined core mechanics of 4e and which doesn't demand a high level of system mastery on the part of the players. I would like a more casual-gamer-friendly accessibility akin to BECMI D&D. But I don't want to play B/X or BECMI D&D, I don't want to play AD&D, and I don't want to play Castles & Crusades.
Of course, I can play D&D 4e in this manner, and that's what I'm attempting to do. The Essentials player books help with this somewhat, as those are the only means by which I can simply hand a player a single book and let them make choices for building their characters. As soon as I need to start referring them to message board threads or even filtering through the options presented in the Character Builder, it starts to become more work than fun.
I would love a more stripped-down, faster-playing core D&D game that focuses on the classic archetypes (fighter, wizard, cleric, thief) and races (human, dwarf, elf, halfling). Each class would have a limited number of very distinct customization options to replace feats -- I'm thinking along the lines of the class talent trees in Star Wars: Saga Edition. The core game would top out at 10th level, with expansion sets introducing options for higher-level play. Yes, I know this sounds just like BECMI with the benefit of modern game design. Other game expansions could introduce new character classes and races and offer expanded customization options for the core classes, essentially pulling back the curtains and revealing how the core classes were designed from their component pieces.
There is always the risk of alienating a large segment of the established layer base by streamlining too much of the core game. On the other hand, when the core game expects a certain degree of system master from the players, it becomes very unapproachable for the newcomer or more casual gamer. I don't have the data to make an educated statement about how to find the ideal balance between those two extremes; I only speak from my own preferences, which have moved significantly towards the "more approachable and casual-gamer-friendly" end of the spectrum in recent years.
