MerricB said:
Just looking at your examples, I think we need to distinguish between:
* Magic was more mysterious, and
* Magic was more random.
Random doesn't mean mysterious. Casting prismatic spray was random, not mysterious. I tend to feel the same about the potion miscibility tables. When they could be mysterious was when the players didn't know about them.
Please recall that potion miscability was brought up not to discus mystery (or Sense of Wonder

) but simply to demonstrate that there was (and is) inherent to the RAW a level of unpredictability.
As far as mystery goes, I for one have no more problem with that in 3.X than in 1e, although in order to achieve that end in either case Rule 0 must be adhered to. A player going into a 1e game received very clear direction that the DM could change the rules, and that
anything might happen within a game of D&D. A player going into a 3.5 game recieves very clear direction that he should encounter foes within CR X-Y range, after and during which he will gain Z gp worth of reward.
One setup is simply more conducive to mystery (be it related to magic, monsters, and what might happen) than the other. Obviously, a 3e game can have the same elements as a 1e game, but the rulebooks themselves do not prepare the players for the game in the same way.
Throwing cosmetic effects onto an item can quite easily make players view the item as more mysterious, btw. The
+2 keen ghost-touch scythe that was found on a Medium-sized, albino goblin, and that makes its user's skin and hair begin to pale IMC was quickly regarded as a potent unknown simply
because it was an unknown. I.e., it was not predictable technology when the players found it because it had unexpected effects that, while themselves were knowable, were unknown to the players (and implied the existence of other unknowns).
RC