Mouseferatu
Hero
I wonder how the new Tomb of Horrors by Ari Marmell is going to be?
Hey Mouseferatu, got any "this is what I was thinking as I worked on it" bits of interest to share?
Quite a bit, but I can't share most of it yet.

First, make sure to carefully read the description of the new ToH in the catalog before you get any ideas locked in your head in terms of what the adventure is/contains.

Second, to address something that Crothian said...
Long modules I have noticed do have pacing issues in general. I usually run the short 32 pagers becasue we can get in and out easily and it doesn't have complexities that we aren't looking for. Maybe I'll have a thread about how to pace out a long module next.![]()
I think the solution we came up with for ToH is a good middle ground, and it's something I'd love to see more "super-adventures" do. ToH isn't a single "play through from beginning to end" adventure. It's basically four smaller adventures with an ongoing plot, designed to be sprinkled throughout a campaign at different levels. So the PCs might first encounter Acererak's machinations at 10th level, and then not again until somewhere in the teens (though of course the DM is encouraged to drop hints between the two). So the ongoing plot winds in and out of the events of the campaign, slowly drawing the PCs more and more into--and letting them discover more and more about--Acererak's scheme.
Like any good remake, the spirit of the original has to be captured and that's where I feel most remakes fail.
While I have yet to work on any straight remakes--I've done quite a few "sequels/homages/inspired-by" kinds of modules, but not a direct conversion--I have to agree. It's far more important to get the feel/spirit/tone of the original than to get every single detail correct.
And it can be very difficult. Completely ignoring whether it's a good or bad thing, it's undeniable that the focus and presentation of the rules has changed over the course of the editions. Sometimes, that means that certain aspects of an older adventure simply do not translate well, no matter how loyal a writer is trying to be to the original conception.
I also think that this is one place where the delve format of the encounters actually works against us. See, I think the delve format is a brilliant means of showcasing encounters--it's an absolute dream for the DM to have all the info (monsters, terrain, suggested tactics, map, etc.) right there at his fingertips. When it comes to individual encounters, I have trouble thinking of a better presentation.
But, while the presentation is great on an encounter level, it causes some headaches (at least for me; I can't speak for other designers, of course) for the adventure as a whole, because it takes up so much space. Look how short some of the old classic modules are, like Steading of the Hill Giant Chief or White Plume Mountain. An adventure of the same length, written with the delve format, could include maybe a half-dozen total encounters. This is mitigated somewhat by the fact that many of the old-fashioned encounters can be combined into a single larger one, but that only reduces the problem, rather than eliminate it.
What it boils down to is that--again, leaving aside whether it's for better or for worse--a delve-format module (be it 3.5, 4E, or whatever) cannot, by definition, include nearly as many encounters as a non-delve module. And that makes conversion of older material harder purely for reasons of space and intensity of labor. Whether the clarity and ease of encounters under the delve format makes up for that is entirely dependent on the personal tastes of a given DM.