Have you grown dependent on Challenge Ratings?

[S'mon]

This is one of the most interesting aspects of this subject, actually - the fact that different 1e campaigns could have widely divergent levels of power and ability at the same character level (indeed, in my own games, 10th level characters in one campaign weren't at the same level of power as 10th level characters in another campaign). For all that it was intended to standardise AD&D games across the board, 1e (and 2e as well, to a degree) still allowed for a considerable amount of variance.

I agree. It depended a lot on eg character generation method; whether you used the treasire tables, and whether you used Unearthed Arcana, which gave characters a huge boost - I always used UA but if I had my time over I'd have disallowed it; it was wholly unbalanced & everyone wanted to play a female Dark Elf Cavalier.

Many years later I acquired Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert, a far better balanced game IMO; PCs are far better matched to monster power than in 1e, esp, post-UA 1e.