Things I miss from earlier editions ...
- Priests of different deities who actually seemed
different from one another.
- Planescape. And Spelljammer, Al-Qadim, Dark Sun ... unique campaign settings.
- The "wierder" spells, like
glassteel.
- The expanded Inner Planes (Paraelemental, Quasielemental ... ), and the (demi-) Plane of Shadow not being quite so grim. Or grim in a different way.
- Adventures with story and background, and supplements with more than just a smattering of flavour text.
- Wierd monsters. I
like Giant Space Hamsters.

- Combat that doesn't tie the characters to a mini grid.
- The rules for henchmen, and strongholds / freeholds.
- The ability to write a character in less than an hour; an NPC in 5 minutes or less.
... There's probably more, but I can't think of them at the moment. Ehehe. A lot of this, admittedly, we've simply ported over to the newer edition ...
Tai