Obryn
Hero
If you feel I'm "edition bashing" by saying "this is what could be done to make an edition more appealing to me" then by all means, whatever gets your coffee percolating in the morning, sir.
The thing is, what you're looking for - asking them to leave existing things without new versions - isn't realistic, IMO.
Please understand, I get what you're saying. When I wanted to run Temple of Elemental Evil for my group two years ago, I pulled out my AD&D books (and pointed them at OSRIC) and ran the adventure in the original system. I did that because 1e ToEE is well-suited to its original edition. Ditto, the other classic AD&D adventures - and classic Paranoia adventures, classic Call of Cthulhu adventures, and so on. I agree absolutely that they were written to fit their system, and when I want to run them, I run them in those systems. I absolutely get that.
HOWEVER. A 4e version of Hommlett and the Moathouse is just a 4e version of it - not the original. It's a reinterpretation, like playing Mozart on a moog synthesizer. If I were running a 4e version of them - I'm running a version of it that's rewritten to fit a new rules set, while keeping familiar elements.
I don't want to put the classic adventures under glass in a museum. I want to play them - but I also want to see new stuff using those classic themes, ideas, and settings. They're getting converted to other systems because they are incredible and the designers want to pay homage to them, not because they were flawed.
With 4e, the system has been changed around quite a lot. The Moathouse as written in 1e would be a poor dungeon if converted strictly to 4e. The 4e version isn't better, it isn't a criticism, and it isn't an update - it's just a riff on a legendary dungeon. And when stuff was changed around for 4e, it's not disrespectful - any more than converting it to Burning Wheel or Fantasy Craft would have been.
It's kind of ironic - one of the main criticisms I've seen of 4e has been that it ignores D&D's history too much. FR, the Great Wheel, etc. I think it's great that the designers are paying some homage to D&D's history, and as a fan of 4e who's been playing every edition of D&D since those days, I personally hope to see a lot more of it.
-O