whereas CG-CN-CE always seems to cause a huge blur, especially in the CN vs. CE area.
Chaotic is about applying your own standards and disregarding those of others. Good vs. Neutral vs. Evil is a matter of what those standards are. If you don't have any compunctions against hurting or killing others to get what you want you're evil. If you have some sort of standards that preclude you from murdering folks when it would sate your appetites you're probably neutral. If you feel moral obligation to make personal sacrifices to help others and oppose evil you're probably good.
The real mess comes from when Chaos becomes an excuse to apply an ego-centric definition of Good and Evil and suddenly Chaotic Evil is claiming to be Neutral or Good because they think the world is evil and killing the weak is right, just, and generally just doing them a favor.
To make the Chaotic scale of alignment work you have to have an external criteria of Good and Evil that's more codified than a Chaotic character might be willing to accept.
And I think LN being lost is worth losing CN. LN can be covered by individual attitudes of LG and LE people. A LG magister could uphold an immoral law for the greater good while fighting to change said law through the proper channels, for example.
I think the difference between Neutral and Good is that Neutral is merely Benign towards the stranger while Good is downright Benevolent. The idea that Neutral means "I don't care about Good and Evil" or "I want balance between Good and Evil" or "I don't believe in Good and Evil," is where the real problem is.
Plenty of Chaotic Evil characters don't believe in Good and Evil either. Amoral and Immoral can go hand-in-hand. Animals are Amoral without being Immoral because they lack the capacity to reason morally.
Lawful Evil characters may desire very strongly to see a balance between Good and Evil in the world. Whenever an adventurer kills a marauding Elder Red Dragon then murder a hundred orphaned children or something to "maintain the balance." They are Evil with a capital "E."
Good vs. Evil is about what you are willing to do to and for others. Neutrality is about being unwilling or unable to cross the line into a life of malicious depravity or heroic virtue. In that regard "Unaligned" from 4E is a better fit that "True Neutral." My 9-point alignment view goes something like this:
Lawful Evil --- Lawful --- Lawful Good
Evil -------- Unaligned -------- Good
Choatic Evil -- Chaotic -- Chaotic Good
If something is sworn above all else to implementing the Balance he's Lawful himself (by motive and deed) even if his code an oath of Neutrality. Why he believes in this balance and lines he's willing to cross to maintain it determined whether he's Lawful Good, Lawful Evil, or just Lawful.
When someone says, "I'd love to help" or "I hate to have to do this" and follows up with, "but 'the Balance Must Be Maintained,'" he's behaving in an Awfully Lawful fashion.
- Marty Lund