And that is why I would love for them to keep Anarchy around for the people who like a 'simplified' game, and bring back the crunch and customization of 4th when 5th dies in a fire and 6th comes along. Let Anarchy be the rules-light noob version, and then take the training wheels off when they're ready to get into customization in the real system.
See, for me and some other old skool players, 4e feels like a "dumb down" version of 3e....
when 4e came about, a lot of options were also dropped, changed with the rules to become nonviable, or were simply thrown by the wayside.
I admit that the matrix rules are faster under 4e (by a factor of 1000!), but at the same time the matrix lost its charm. It was no longer a place that a specialist was needed - you could just throw money at the problem. and the matrix disappeared. (the Commlink/agent combo)
In fact, after a certain level of play, the very idea of a "specialist" died right out. Everyone could do everything with just about the same level of skill. (except magic... that stayed separate just because of the resources need.)
Transferring a character from 3e to 4e was fine.... unless you actually played a Decker/hacker, then you found that everything you had invested time in for the 6 years through 3e was utterly pointless as your attributes have 0 effect on your matrix performance. Many players of Deckers in 3e where.... "slightly" annoyed at this.
And, I for one was happy with 5e because it meant a return to specialization again for those that really wanted to invest down an avenue, and allowed that didn't to branch out into other disciplines. Granted never as well as someone who specializes.
Am I saying the 5e rules are perfect, adn without flaws? Don't be silly, there is definite room for improvement all across the board. But it is not an "epic failure" as some want to believe.
