Ruin Explorer
Legend
This is where the separation of fluff & crunch really did the game a disservice. The old way of searching involved interacting with the setting. As a player, the setting and what it contained were important game elements. Game play involved interacting with the game world through the description/inquiry/clarification feedback loop. Players tend to pay attention to setting details when they matter in the resolution of play.
It's not separating fluff/crunch, on the contrary, it's unifying them. You can object to that, but you're describing it incorrectly.
The modern game that skips the "boring" stuff revolves almost exclusively with interacting with the mechanics. An endless repetition of " I search, I got a 22". It doesn't matter what is in the room, what or where something is. Heck, the room doesn't even NEED a description for that matter. Everything is tuned out that isn't relevant to the outcome of the mechanical interaction. The game world can be a 2 dimensional grease painting for all that it matters. Players could care less about what is in a room because the setting is divorced from the resolution of play.
This is so patently untrue it's not worth arguing with.
I suppose we have different tastes but endlessly droning " I search" and rolling a die (and metagaming by taking 20 if the result isn't high) is way more boring than poking and prodding a fictional environment.
Except that "poking/proding" in this case is essentially saying "I search" until you find the right variant of "I search". It's not "metagaming" to take 20. It's realistic - if I search for something in real life I search until I find it or am assured it is not there.
Further, interacting with a fictional environment can be much more interesting if it's not just "find the right phrase" stuff, but actually involves thinking. Like how to plan a heist, for example.
Can you give an example of a 3E or 4E adventure challenge that doesn't involve either a combat or getting X or higher on a die roll?
Not sure exactly what you mean here, but pretty certain Logan Bonner's Blood Money in Dungeon covers it. Check it out.