Let me show you some examples of the differences between 1st and 3rd Editions. Regardless of how people "played" the game, these are stated in the rulebook.
AD&D (An example of a Character at level 1):
Opening a Door: 1d6 vs 2
Bend Bars: 1d100 vs 10
Picking a Pocket*: 1d100 vs 30
Open Lock*: 1d100 vs 25
Find/Remove Trap*: 1d100 vs 20
Move Silently*: 1d100 vs 15
Hide in Shadows*: 1d100 vs 10
Hear Noise*: 1d100 vs 10
Climb Walls*: 1d100 vs 85
Read Languages*: 1d100 vs NEVER (at lvl 1)
Surprised: 1d6 vs 2
* These skills can never be attempted by any other class that is not a Thief or Assassin. Again, there is NO place in the PHB or DMG that describes how another class can attempt Thief skills if he is not a Thief or Assassin. Anyone that says otherwise is making it up.
3rd Edition (an example of a character at any level):
Opening a Door: D20 vs free-wheeled DC
Bend Bars: D20 vs free-wheeled DC
Picking a Pocket**: D20 vs free-wheeled DC
Open Lock**: D20 vs free-wheeled DC
Find/Remove Trap**: D20 vs free-wheeled DC
Move Silently**: D20 vs free-wheeled DC
Hide in Shadows**: D20 vs free-wheeled DC
Hear Noise**: D20 vs free-wheeled DC
Climb Walls**: D20 vs free-wheeled DC
Read Languages: D20 vs free-wheeled DC
Surprises enemy: D20 vs free-wheeled DC
...
ANY CHALLENGE: D20 vs free-wheeled DC
** Any class under the sun can attempt these.
Notice how each AD&D DC number is a HARD number, not a SOFT number like 3rd Edition. In AD&D They have to be met exactly as stated under the rules of the book for a character to succeed.
You can explain until you're blue in the face that 3rd edition has a metric ton more of tacked-on rules for skills, feats, and combat, but when we're talking explicitly about the "Dice vs Difficulty Class" (and the driving engine of any RPG), AD&D was far stricter.
This is just a small example. I could paste up many more tables showing how AD&D was strict and 3rd Edition is far more free-wheeled. A DM house-ruling things is all well and good and perfectly acceptable, but I'm talking about what is written in the books.
I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt about much of your perspective about 1e vs 3e, up to a point. But there comes a point when you become simply factually incorrect.
In 1e, Hear Noise is not at all limited to thieves and assassins. It's a thief skill but that's mainly because they're the only class in 1e that
gets better at it not because nobody else can do it. See page 60 of the DMG.
Characters of other classes, such as halflings and elves, can move silently without being thieves or assassins as well. In fact, that halfling fighter in leather armor is much better at sneaking around than the low-level thief. See pages 16-17 of the PH. I won't even get into elven boots.
But this isn't to say that other classes have particularly significant ability to do some of these things across the board. Rather, I'm trying to point out that 1e has general rules and
plenty of exceptions, too many to be so glib about the way character classes are expected to be played.
You are also simply mistaken about the use of many 3e skills and checks. Move Silently, Hide in Shadows, Listen, Spot, and other skill checks have a DC determined by an opposing check, not just a free-wheeling number arbitrarily set by the DM. Other skills like Open locks may not actually be tried by just anyone, but may only be tried by a character trained in the skills. Granted, any character can learn those skills, but it's the rogues who typically have the easiest time at it in the various iterations of 3e, 3.5e, PF, and 4e.
Other checks you list are as mistaken as the ones I mention above. Breaking down a simple door has a DC of 13. Bending iron bars - DC 24. Lifting a gate - DC 25. None of those values are any bit more (or less) free-wheeling than those in 1e.
The question of whether a 1e game or a 3e game is more free wheeling is a judgment call. But if your approach to 1e is defined along such rigid use of rules and tables as you suggest above, how does a character go foraging for food? Fishing? Hunting? Climbing trees or mountains? How about getting caught in a lie by a suspicious guardsman at the gate? 1e has plenty of areas of adventuring life NOT covered by any rules, whereas many of these are touched upon in 3e. That's a significant reason 1e is considered more free-wheeling than 3e - there are large gaps in the rules in which DMs
must adjudicate the results of PC decisions on the fly without defined rules. Some DMs thrive on that, some don't. I don't think either game is necessarily better than the other as a result, just different. But you have a highly idiosyncratic interpretation of the difference between the two games.
