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Video game puzzles are the exact opposite of succeeding or failing because a DM said so. They behave according to precise mechanics, with clearly established "win" conditions. I'm not sure what "anticipation based on prior experience" means, or what it has to do with my post.

Why is it so important for HP to be an encounter resource? Why can't healing surges play the role you're looking for? This is barely any real distinction. If you run out of healing surges during a combat in 4E, you are in some pretty serious trouble. The net game effect is similar; choices...

You know, I don't think I've ever seen an experienced, adult RPG player describe a recent gameplay experience as possessing a "sense of wonder", in any system, including old editions of D&D. I don't think "sense of wonder" has anything to do with game mechanics or design. It's rose-tinted...

Because that would be the specific point of having the Strength ability exist. To use for skill rolls where strength is the dominant force. That would be the role of the mechanic. Same reason we have attack bonuses for rolling to-hit, and damage bonuses for adding to damage rolls. That's what...

Raw brute strength does not imply being able to use a club effectively in combat. That "weedy" guy could easily have better training and battle instincts. And this is not new to D&D. Go back to the very original D&D, and you'll find that a 3 STR Fighter is exactly as effective at killing...

No, the major difference is that healing surges are an actually constrained resource, that enable precisely the kind of gameplay you are looking for, and wands of CLW are an effectively unlimited resource to any party with sufficient system mastery, that prevents the kind of gameplay you are...

To be better at breaking down doors, jumping over wide gaps, climbing sheer cliffs, whatever other Skills the DM deems to be primarily an expression of strength. I think a lot of Fighters would be high strength, since it's the most obvious roleplaying choice, but why enforce it by punishing all...

If that's directed to me, absolutely not. Classes, specialties, spells, and maneuvers would all be able to provide bonuses to damage, as they currently do. I'd probably add a little more to Fighters, to make up for the loss of damage from STR. And I'd give Rogues a way to boost AC to make up...

Take it away from Attack and Damage. Take Dex away from AC. Take Con away from HP. Bring back saves, independent from ability scores. Remove ability scores from the combat system entirely. We already have classes, specialties, spells, and maneuvers that are entirely sufficient for...

You've changed the scenario from what you originally posted. But still, the wandering monster rules are pretty silly if the goblins are just blindly going on the same patrols even as their numbers dwindle to nothing. Why doesn't the next patrol notice when the previous ones don't return? No...

Unless there are magic soundproof walls between these rooms, this scenario makes no sense. Why are the 4 goblins next door sitting there while combat rages on the other side of the door? But even that aside, what's the problem? What is 4E having "trouble" with here that other editions wouldn't...

There is absolutely nothing in 4E forcing you to build your adventure in any way other than how you want to build it. If you don't want to focus on encounters, then don't! You won't get the benefit of easily predictable encounter difficulty, of course, but sounds like you don't care about...

I agree that 3.5 was not an overhaul. The core mechanics did not change. But it also was nowhere near a "fix". Because the core mechanics remained fundamentally broken. But I hope you can agree, then, that the errata and modifications over the lifetime of 4E are, at the very least, not a...

The game, right out of the first run core books, works well enough to be more mathematically sound and transparent than any other edition of D&D. So whatever fixes there were later are irrelevant to that point, in the first place. Those fixes are minor because, well, they are. A few tweaks to...

I wouldn't mind it if Next abandoned automatically scaling HP with level, but I doubt the devs would be willing to do that, since it's a pretty big "feel of D&D" thing. Well, yes. That's all I meant. Not that all classes need CS, but that all classes need damage scaling of some sort...

4E is still by far the most mathematically sound and transparent system of any D&D. That it required some minor fixes is essentially inevitable. Nothing is perfect. Other editions were simply unfixable. There's simply no other RPG out there (D&D or not) with the complexity and depth of...

It would take one hell of a module to turn the messy, scattershot design we've seen so far into something even remotely resembling 4E. It would pretty much need to be a whole new game. That "tactical" module didn't even sound 4E-like at all. It was 3E. And even if we get AEDU powers and...

You're being pedantic. Or just attacking a straw man. All anyone is talking about is being able to play in the "style" of other editions (see: "in effect" in the post you quoted). Nobody expects 5E to literally have the exact rules of every past edition. That's completely silly. Problem is...

If by "people" you mean the designers and developers of D&D Next, then yes. "People" set expectations to high. In fact, they set expectations higher even than stated in the OP. They actually said you'd be able to have characters that play like each of the previous editions, at the same table.

There are lots of other (and much better) ways that high level fights can feel different from low level fights than by simply having larger bags of HP to slog through. Even if a 20th level Fighter fells an Ancient Dragon in the same number of attacks as a 1st level Fighter against a Kobold...