I've been thinking about AD&D the last few days, since a couple of the panels at Necronomicon and the discussions we had on them. When I say AD&D I mean first edition because I never played or followed AD&D 2e. I don't think I've played AD&D since 1986 or so. My last game in the "old school" of (A)D&D was a Rules Cyclopedia game of D&D in '88 or so. But I've been thinking about it again.
Yes, the game was a mess compared to "modern" rulesets, but I don't care. I'm not going to rationalize or justify the messiness of the rules. I liked them. That's part of what made them fun.
I'm not going to analyze them either. For me, personally, that defeats the purpose of the games when I was younger. They just were. We played and had fun.
But I do now want to pull the books off the shelf and play them again. :)