I need to preface this post, I realized. I'm not against people who like to play games a certain way. If you and your group have fun, that's great. However, when it comes to the complaints I hear, well....
What surprises me is how some people who prefer older versions of D&D act like people wanting less restrictions on casters is a new thing. I mean, looking in my 1e DMG, I see Rings of Wizardry that double spell slots of a given level, Boccob's Blessed Books that can contain a whole spell library that fits in your backpack, and powerful Wands and Staves that can only be used by Wizards.
By 2e, the Tome of Magic (1991), we have spells that conjure spell components and lower magic resistance of enemies.
And as far as resource management goes, well, Murlynd's Spoons, Quivers of Ehlonna, Daern's Instant Fortress, Rods of Splendor, Bags of Holding, Portable Holes, Heward's Handy Haversack, etc., etc., have been in the game for a very long time as well.
Now I know, someone might say "well the DM decides if these things enter the game", but that's never really changed. It seems obvious to me that this "problem" (if you think it is one) has never really been one for D&D. You were always meant to be able to find ways to progress beyond worrying about starving in the wilderness, being picked apart by wolves, and finding a place to take a nap.
Characters were meant to have a means to become more magical, and grow beyond the limits of their class and race. This is part of what makes D&D, well, D&D!
What people are waxing nostalgic for isn't some lost ancient D&D, but the "low level experience".
A friend of mine, Tom, once said he wanted to run a 1e game the way the game was "meant to be played". When I asked him about this, he brought up how the game is the most fun at levels 1-7, and that he wanted to institute the training cost rules- ie, that you had to pay X amount of cash to gain levels on top of xp, and that this would keep characters poor and eventually they'd need so much gold to hit higher levels that it wouldn't be worth it.
"But Tom", I said, "don't you get experience points for finding gold in the first place? I mean, you don't get very much from fighting monsters anyways. So by the time even a Thief is looking at 8th level, shouldn't he have earned something like 40 thousand gold pieces in treasure?"
We quibbled about the exact amount of xp would come from treasure, but eventually he mumbled something about "guild dues". "So basically, the only way this works is if, on top of training costs, you artificially keep characters poor."
"Well, that's the way we played", was his response.
"And this was fun?"
"...sometimes?"
"I see. Well if you're going to run, I'm in, but I got to say, it feels like you're fighting the system to get the experience you want."
That game never did materialize, because by the next time we spoke, he'd dusted off his Runemaster books, lol.
When I think of gaming along these lines, I'm reminded of old PC games like Ultima, Wizardry, Bard's Tale, or Might & Magic, which often had you worry about carrying around torches and food. But interestingly, most of those games also eventually let spellcasters create light, conjure food, or teleport out of dungeons, as even the creators of those games knew that as the game progressed, these things would become tedious to the player.
So it's not a surprise to me why D&D has continued this trend of phasing out these sorts of things, since they've been doing it since the early days of the game.
