Parmandur
Book-Friend
Late to the party here. Touching back on the Essentials line, I really liked the box sets. Never played the included adventures but I appreciated them being included. I still use the monster and hero tokens included in the sets in my 5e game (when battles are too large for TotM). Essentials excited me when it released. It was definitely doubling down on classic aesthetics and it worked on me Haha. Never got to really play the line very much so I'm not sure how much of a departure it was from core 4e.
Someone mention KotSF earlier. I have seen this module get some hate. It was the first adventure I ran for 4e. I enjoyed it and my players (not quit sure how 4e should be played) seem to have fun with it. As a whole we just didnt know the focus of 4e was tactical combat. Most would just spam their basic attack. We were all returning players/DM from 2e and that's how we tried to play it. Looking back now and maybe taking more time with the introductory rules I often wonder if we would have enjoyed it more and stuck with it.
My limited 4E experience was with Keep on the Shadowfell, and we enjoyed the Adventure just fine: the campaign fell apart for personal reasons, and I never felt compelled to get into 4E again.