[...] I thought it would be helpful to explain, in detail, why I think that (1) it is imperative that WoTC publish Greyhawk as a campaign setting on or before the 50th Anniversary of D&D [...]
I don't think you made a very good case that it is "imperative" for WotC to publish Greyhawk. (haters gon' hate, internet pedants gon' go after your word choice)
I understood your main arguments on the point to be the following:
1. The importance of Greyhawk in history, for the future, and for 2024.
[...] the close association of Greyhawk with Gygax is important in understanding the history of the game [...]
2. Greyhawk is not the Forgotten Realms.
[...] Greyhawk has mysteries; the lore is often incomplete. What are the fabled dungeons of Castle Greyhawk truly like? What is the real story behind the Rain of Colorless Fire and the Invoked Devastation? What is the past that gave us all those evocative names for artifacts in the 1e DMG? [...]
[...] Greyhawk was born from more of an amalgamation of Swords & Sorcery and vaguely political influences, with countries (and city states) with crazy forms of government in a state of tension. [...]
I basically agree with all of those points but, apart from the first one, I don't see that Greyhawk is the only or even necessarily the best suited setting. Other settings also have mysteries/unexplored teritorry (Nerath... or Strixhaven as
@Paul Farquhar not entirely unsarcastically mentioned) and other settings also have a sword and sorcery aesthetic mixed with political allegory (Dark Sun). And, where the first point is concerned, engaging with history is very much a YMMV advantage, though, as you say elsewhere in the thread, it is
appropriate for an anniversary publication.
Did I miss something there? I'd be happy enough to see WotC do something with Greyhawk (I love my Sword and Sorcery), but these don't seem like overwhelmingly compelling reasons why they should.
(apologies if the above out of context quotes are misleading, they're meant to be illustrative, not gotchas)
[...] What is the real story behind the Rain of Colorless Fire and the Invoked Devastation? [...]
[...] It's a setting where the "good guys" are losing, where the big bads are winning and consolidating power and where the goal of the power players (for ex. the Circle of Eight) isn't for good to get on top but for a balance. It can definitely be done as different enough to merit it's own supplement! [...]
(emphasis mine)
Whoa...
I don't think I ever noticed this before but... is that a Cold War thing?
Mutually assured destruction between the Baklunish and Suloise empires and then (much later) a period where key intellectuals advocate a balance [of power] between conflicting blocs.
Yikes, maybe Greyhawk would be (uncomfortably)
apropos of 2024.