That's exactly what I say, but reverse it. 3e combat is a chore compared to the simplicity of the AD&D system. We didn't use weapon speed and to hit vs AC tables. It was simplicity to drop those and reduce the combat to roll a 20, check to hit chart, roll damage. No power attacks, flanks, expertises, defensive fights, etc. Dropping those from d20 has serious reprecussions however.
No more serious repercusions than dropping 'to hit vs. AC tables' did in 1st edition. Combat will still work with D20 'lite', but you lose a certain degree of 'realism', 'balance', and cinematic quality.
Without the 'to hit vs. AC tables' and some rules (usually house rules) taking into account reach, there was essentially no reason to use anything but a sword - specifically long swords and two-handed swords - because swords were, without the 'to hit vs. AC tables', vastly superior to any other weapon in every situation. Not only that, but some weapons which should not be that effective, say darts or shurikens, were positively broken, and people could go around using blow guns vs. dragons and men in full plate.
But of all the things that ulimately drove me from AD&D to GURPS, it was the lack of cinimatic quality to AD&D combats. The AD&D combat system was so abstract that it often disolved down to (especially in the players minds) a dice rolling session. I sometimes felt I should automate combat it had such a mechanical feel. What would happen if someone chose to dodge rather than fight? The parry mechanics in UA helped, but they were clunky and not well balanced. There were so many situations that I would like to have 'happen' in combat, that didn't because the players were just rolling dice and reporting numbers instead. GURPS let a fight play out in a highly visual manner that had become lost in AD&D.
"3e is much more of a tactical miniature based system at heart."
If I have any complaint at all against D20, it is its reliance on minatures. On this one issue alone do I have a major complaint against Monte. Monte loves minatures, and he designed a system that defaults to thier use. I detest minatures. I loath them. Not because I mind buying or painting them, but because when you use minatures people stop using thier imagination in the same way - exactly the problem I had with D&D in its first incarnation. When you use minatures, the tendancy is to imagine your character in the third person instead of the first. The tendancy is to remove yourself from the virtual environment and look down, godlike, on the game and think about your character being that little metal figure 5 squares from that little door.
I hate that. I hate having to move around minatures every time I describe something. I hate people describing thier actions in game terms, 'I take a move equivalent action and step 6 squares west, then attack', rather than in something cinematic and I hate how if you are not careful in describing something cinimatically that you are more ambigious in D20 than in AD&D. If I say 'I run up to the fell beast, and hew it with my sword hoping to distract it from Bro. Jozon. "Pick on someone your own size, swine."', did I take a run action, a charge, or a normal move and attack?
Experienced D20 groups probably overcome these problems, but they still bug me.
"It would make a good man to man tactical fighting system, kind of like GUPRS advanced combat."
It's not nearly that good, but the nice part of it is that it isn't nearly that good. It lies in some sort of happy medium between high realism and quick resolution.
