Thinking in this way "this game is clearly best" is I think one of the attitudes behind edition warring. It doesn't leave room for "that is also good, maybe AS good".
And yet, your alternative leaves no way to ever improve anything, and denies the fact that not all designs- or assesments of designs- are of equal merit.
This is not just a matter of opinon. Some people might think that game design is just a thing anyone can do, but it's actually very challenging, and can fail of suceed to varying degrees.
It doesn't matter how many rationalisations you want to make, the previous versions of D&D are just not as well designed as 4e.
4e still has a lot of problems, things that don't work well- 4e fans know this, and it's the fact that the actual problems are so different from the made-up hater problems that make this distinction clear.
In some ways, the fact that 4e is so good is a problem itself- Fred Hicks, a designer of some renown, commented on this during the post-mortem of his 4e venture. Designing for 4e is
hard, because it's a very good, and hence very demanding system.
It's well balanced, it creates solid outcomes, so the kind of half-assed design done in a lot of games (including 3e) just doesns't cut it, and sticks out like a sore thumb. I'll refrain from naming a few gsl products that show this, including one that got a lot of flack on rpgnet for not doing the kind of dilligence that 4e fans were used to.
Oh and please note, as should be obvious, i'm not saying anything about other rpgs. But when we talk about D&D, about fantasy roleplaying? Saying that the various editions are equal in merit is about as legit as saying rifts is as well designed as savage worlds.
It's not suprising seeing 4e bashers insisting that game design is some kind of subjective art with no rational grounding. You are after all, not presenting rational arguments when you describe the 'videogamification' or 'devancification' of 4e.
I've seen the kind of designs that are coming out of the 'old school renaisance', and i've seen what pathfinder tweaked in it's fan-pandering copy paste of 3e. Not to mention 'I want my (absurdly overpowered) magic back', on this very website.
Enthusiastic? Maybe.
Original? Hardly.
Well designed?
Effective, positive design leading to people having more fun? No, not at all. The same god-damned terrible fighter that 3e had should never have made it's way into pathfinder, and when they let it in to appease the fans, they failed miserably by any standards of legitimate design.
I don't care if people are too narrow minded and dogmatic to realise that.
I am not going to bow and nod to some smug dm or fan who thinks it's ok for one of their friends at the table, or anyone at any table, to have a dull, boring time because they fell into one of the gaping pit-traps in 3e design.
And i'm not very impressed with mike mearls for feeding that anti-fun delusion by chortling along in his colum, about his useless garbage od&d thief that he had to make his own fun with because the system he paid money for wasn't doing it's job, by adding to his enjoyment of the game instead of subtracting from it.
In reality, design is a real, credible disipline, and it leads to better games, wich people have more fun with. That's a principle worth defending, and that makes me an edition warrior, then so be it.
