Not to "thread jack" Anthony's thread but I wanted to respond to that question.
1. Class Same-ness. I looked at some of the powers for various classes and even at higher levels they seemed to do the same amount to damage. 2d8, 2d6 psionic, cold whatever.
2. Minions.
3. Skill challenges.
4. Extremely difficult to convert to prior editions.
5. Junking prior settings in favor of a default 4e setting.
Mike
So...the new edition is bothering you about the new edition?
Just kidding.
Seriously though, let me ask this: what editions are you trying to convert to? I find that conversions of any edition of D&D to any other is difficult if you're trying to "mirror" everything. If you just think about intent, any edition to any other edition is very easy, in my mind. I converted almost the entire box set of Castle Zagyg: Upper Works to 4e in about a week. It was a breeze. But that's because I very much just tried to read the intent of the encounters, and build that intent into a 4e-style encounter. In fact, I find 4e style encounter maps are awesome (more stuff going on) and are great to port into older version games.
Minions...what's the issue here? If you hate 1-hit-1-kill, give them 1st hit = bloody, 2nd hit = killed. Or ignore them altogether. They are just a tool for the DM, and should be used as such only as necessary. More of a play-style choice.
Skill challenges: don't use them. Think of what the intent of the challenge is, and break it down to some individual skill checks. I run skill challenges pretty loosely: goal of the challenge, players tell me how they want to approach it, I have them roll. Failures cause drawbacks, successes cause them to get closer to reaching the goal. I don't really add up successes vs. failures as an arbitrary number, but rather have a set number of successes and a list of WHAT HAPPENS with each failure. Failures may or may not negate the goal of the challenge, but are often big enough issues that failing is obviously not ideal.
I find skill challenges to be the easiest thing to ignore or tweak in the new edition, and it is very dependent on the group as to how they work (if used at all).
Junking prior settings...well, I'm used to that. All the settings I like get cancelled or die out eventually. If you already own the old books for the setting, why not use that? I think people marry setting & rules to often, and I think that's a problem when editions change. Once again, you can convert based on intent. Was the setting low-magic? Use the many houserules to pull magic items out of the game and replace with static bonuses at various levels (only play martial classes, perhaps?). Were there nimble lizardfolk as player characters? Reskin a monster race, or just change up a Dragonborn's benefits. Did the moon constantly rain down purple bunnies that could chew threw metal in an instant, but left flesh alone? Look at Rust Monsters for rules on metal-eating, or make up your own.
Damage: Perhaps expanding the list of Conditions would help you out, and then tack those on? For example, create a condition that goes with any fire attack (perhaps Spontaneous Combustion), and have the effect of that condition be fire related (character must save or burst into flames for another dX damage). More variance in damage, and it's not just tied to one class or something, so it's still balanced. Obviously my fire example is stupid (just use ongoing fire damage), but if you get my intent, maybe you can cobble something better together.
Just to be Devil's Advocate, what was so different about damage and/or attacks in older editions that made it more interesting? A fighter at high level rolled 6 attack rolls, and rolled 2d6+15 each time he hit. Or the wizard rolled no attack roll, hit 6 enemies for 8d6 damage, but the enemies got a chance to save. Now, my numbers may be silly, but the point is: you have two players who roll a bunch of d6s (and one of them gets to roll a couple d20s, while the other watches the DM roll a bunch of d20s). Is there really that much difference?
Final piece of advice: if combat, skill challenges, conversions, settings, minions, etc. don't work for you, you may not be playing the right game. Perhaps everyone else in your group plays 4e, though, so you have to deal. But in that case, what do you care if Billy is playing a mechanically similar character to you? Can't you roleplay yours differently, or maybe use cooler looking dice from Chessex or something? Maybe you are annoyed by that fact, but IMHO, that's not a big deal to me. YMMV
I feel like my post is ranty, so please excuse any offense, as it was not intended. Bad day at work and all.
