Good stuff, Herschel. As an aside, it is interesting to note how some folks have misunderstood or nitpicked what you are saying and missed the key element, which is (as I see it) that the game hasn't changed as much as we have, as our lives have as we have gotten older.
I think what you are saying may be a major reason, even the biggest reason, that the game has changed (the feel and experience of it), but there are other factors such as, as someone said, the simple desire to better the game system itself. But I think what you are talking about isn't recognized as much and should actually be taken into account in game design itself.
The mention of Savage Worlds is interesting because it is, in many ways, the type of game that I wish D&D was. I don't play Savage Worlds mainly because I'm hooked on the D&D milieu and just love the whole package of D&Dania, but I have wondered what the whole D&D edifice would be like if it were more like Savage Worlds in terms of being a simpler, core system. In some sense Savage Worlds is like OD&D in terms of simplicity and flexibility, but with 30+ years of design theory and experience behind it.
I also hold out the hope that the 5E of D&D will take this route, that Essentials is a small stepping stone in that direction. But I doubt it, so I dabble with ideas for my own simple and flexible heartbreaker version of D&D.
Some have and will say that it is a matter of taste, that some like a fast and simple game and others like it to be more complex, that 3.5E, for instance, was the height of D&D design because you could make anything, no matter how long it took. The way I see it, however, is that they are missing the point - that the game can be fast and simple at its core, but with tons of flexible options to customize to your heart's content. The mistake that both 3rd and 4th edition made, imo, was to make the core default game too complex. If we take a scale of 1-10 for game complexity, both start in the 5-6 range and then add on complications that take the game to 8+ (especially 3.5). What they should have done, imo, would be to make the core game in the 2-3 range ala Savage Worlds. You can still add whatever complexities you want, make as many optional systems as you like. In other words, it doesn't take anything away from those that like complexity, it just opens the game up and potentially keeps it alive for those of us who want a simpler, faster game.
It would be an interesting exercise to write a simple version of D&D that is compatible with 4E in, say, 20,000 words or less. A complete, usable game, with everything you need to play D&D in 20,000 words. Then you look at the whole corpus of 4E and Essentials books (or 3.x if you like) and say "these are optional." That might mean that Powers and Feats and Skills must all be optional, with Ability scores and class features being the most essential things that a character has. This would mean, of course, that certain powers and feats would have to be converted to class features, but I'll leave it at that for now...
My point is simply this: It is possible, I think, to make a version of D&D for we aging members of the earlier generations of D&D players that no longer have the time to put into hours and hours of preparation, or miss the days when a given combat didn't take two hours. I've veered a bit off topic, but your excellent post inspired this yearning which is, I think, very much related to the essence of what you are getting at. Yes, we have changed, our lives have changed, but we still want to play D&D - just a form that is conducive to our busier, fuller lives.
