Hairfoot
First Post
That post pretty much nails it.The date makes a big difference...
Remember, too, that 4E relies on tropes that were begun by D&D but incubated elsewhere.
All of the super-fantasy themes that 4E took from Magic, WoW and anime only exist because those entertainments are the spiritual descendants of OD&D. Without the low-powered heroes of 1976, fantasy adventuring would probably not be a popular concept for modern games.
Hell, I was playing Cafe World on Facebook yesterday. The game is as far from D&D as any entertainment can be, but at one point I gained a "level" because I'd earned enough "XP".
The original post assumes that the conceptual landscape of fantasy and sci-fi would be the same today without D&D. In fact, D&D of the 20th century is one of the fundamental bases of modern fantasy and game concepts.