I learned a long time ago to never let another player or DM determine how much you like a game. If I did that I would never have played or GMed RIFTS, Traveller, Harn, MERP, Shadowrun, or Paranoia. Beyond the poor or bad first time experiences I had, that is.
C&C is a good system. I find the saves to be intuitive. Constitution is used for poison saves, dexterity is used to defend/save versus things you can dodge, wisdom is used to save against illusions that deceive you, etc... Most of this is very intuitive to me. There are a few instances where you have to decide which stat applies best, but once you decide that, I feel it gives you a deeper understanding of the game itself.
In C&C everyone has skills. How good you are at those skills are determined by your class and whether or not the stat that applies to the skill roll being attempted is a prime stat. Where house rules are needed for skills are highly skillful skills, such as armor making, herbalism, wheel making, wagonmaking, carpentry, etc... So some house rules would be useful for skills like these.
But Listen, spot, Search, Diplomacy, Bluffing, Sense Motive, and other such skills are handled just fine by the prime attribute rules (SIEGE).
As for the editing and layout problems, they are there, I just wouldn't define them as severe or problematic. Then again I have learned many different systems, many poorly written and confusing, so maybe I am just a high level player/DM that has a high skill level in comprehending new rules. Because I found C&C largely easy to read and comprehend. Yes, some mis-spellings, some huge run on sentences, some serious "large" word useage where a few small words would have been better, but still a very understandable rules set. Much easier than the whole of 3E.
Since the story of the game and having classes that make for effective characters are more important to me than rules that cover every concieveable situtation, and building every micro-aspect of a given character, I much prefer the "clean" rules set of C&C, where I can add simple house rules to give depth to the rules my players and I agree need more depth. Which still ends up being a lot simpler than 3E.
As for nostalgia, I have always hated specialist mages. I have always preferred a conjurer or Illusionist being their own class, so this nostalgic return to an Illusionist class makes a lot more sense to me. Especially if you add in literary concepts. Outside of books written specifically for WOTC/TSR, authors rarely have a spellcaster who "specializes" as a conjurer. They are a Illusionist, Necromancer, Conjurer, etc... So this nostalgic return to having these specialist mages being an actual class, I like it and always have.
