I mentioned, earlier, my extreme disdain for the Realms. A very small amount of that is actually not caring for some parts of what was in the 1E gray box. But, I played, quite happily, in a Realms game with that structure. Really, what fries me about the Realms is that there is so much freaking information that I genuinely don't see how anyone can actually work with the thing and have a life. It seems that you could put together a four year undergraduate program on the Realms and still leave room for a masters. That's great, if your actual hobby is studying the setting (like, say, some do with Tolkien). My hobby is playing the game. In that regard, Forgotten Realms fails to give me what I need to play -- flexibility and manageability.