I think it is clear that a lot of people are angry about 4E (to put it mildly). There are a lot of arguable reasons for this anger.
Some reasons include:
Taking Dungeon and Dragon from Paizo, and changing it to an online format
Killing Living Greyhawk, and substituting Living FR
But the core reason is different I think: too many editions too quickly. There are two factors here: learning the ruleset and financial investment.
Few people enjoy learning new rules. Many of us started with first or second edition AD&D. essentially, from the late 70's to the late 90's the rules stayed the same. Yes, there were some differences between editions, but they were minor. Silly things like Ranger class abilities, making Thac0 an official standard, rather than unofficial, etc. But the rules were essentially unchanged.
I've heard all the arguments about 1st AD&D, vs Unearthed Arcana, vs 2nd edition, vs "2.5". As someone who played during the entire span, I can say from personal experience that the portrayal of these installments as splintering the rules is spurious and false. In all three groups I games with, the result was the same: the ruleset was based on 1st AD&D, and used elements from Unearthed Arcana and 2nd Edition we liked. Or switch the roles of 1st and second (used 2nd as a base, include stuff from 1st). "2.5" was largely ignored. The point is that the "different" core sets were so similar and compatible that they essentially functioned as one large single edition, with variant or optional rules.
This community was willing the tolerate the massive change from 1st/2nd to 3rd for several reasons. The game hadn't changed significantly in a very long time, but the RPG community had. Things standard in AD&D were feeling stale. The AD&D community was also rather disgrunted for reasons of management, and so on. The change was seen as a good thing.
Then came 3.5.
WAY too soon. Full price this time around. A lot of small changes. With it came new classbooks, etc. Suddenly we have to spend more money on more books to be playing the standard version of the game.
3.5 was like 2nd Ed to 1st AD&D. But in three years instead of 10/11 years. And now we have 4E "Don't bother converting from 3E" D&D. 4E is to 3E what 3E was to 1st Ed.
This is the reason for the anger. It is way to much re-rules learning and re-buy-in, too quickly. Its not 3.5 per se, it is the deeper underlying mentality that it reveals. I have talked to people who aren't planning on getting 4E because they are waiting for 4.5 to come out.
And they aren't joking.
This is a thing unheard of, at least in D&D. People not buying one edition because they are anticipating the edition after that. It has a feeling of bizarreness nearing surreal. I suppose for people who started with 3E, it may be different, but at least for me and some of the people I play with, the relentless pace of constant rule overhauls, and and "game resets/startover" is strange, frustrating, and ultimately, creates anger.
Am I the only one? Or am I right about this?