Started playing in the early 80s, but I'm not very traditionalist about D&D.
I dont care much either way about the fluff, because I always make my own campaign world's and create my own. Gnolls going from doglike humanoid #3 to essentially prime material demon hoardes doesnt bother or excite me because in my world they are my world's gnolls. Simarly changes and edits to Forgotten Realms doesn't phase me because the parts of the FR I import (I use their pantheon) to my world dont have to reflect those changes either.
In the area of mechanics, however, I think the sacred cows hold the game back. The basis of the entire system (d20+mod) is too shaky to build the game system I think best. At low mods the d20 creates way too much swing and you have illiterate barbarians out-researching a scholar wizard. At the other end of the spectrum in an escalating mod system like 3e when the bonus eclipses the die you have created a system where you either are good or bad at something with no inbetween.
im not arguing d20+mod doesn't work, it just allows a lot of anomolies that you don't find in other systems. I thought Take 10/20 was an excellent way to account for this but that seems to have been dropped in all but passive skill numbers.
Similarly, since 3e attribute scores have essentially been -5 to +5. We keep the 3-20 scale for old school feel, but to an outside observer that scale has no purpose.
All that said, if I sit down to play D&D then if those things were all missing I would think the game was misnamed.
