Your posts are always a bit intimidating to comment on, because I feel like I need to raise my game.
Don't worry, brah. You got game.
I have vague memories of our furious nerd debates about the Zeb Cook article and the direction of 2e. It makes me nostalgic now, but we were mad. As teenagers, we obviously knew everything, and it was clear to us that he wanted to wreck D&D. We thought TSR was backing down to the Christian Right by banning the words "demon" and "devil" and by no longer illustrating the Gynosphinx with naked bewbs. And obviously, we were sure that Lorraine Williams done did Gary Gygax wrong (this was long before the rumours about his Hollywood adventures made the rounds, at least to our tender ears).
I don't see OneD&D exciting the same rage. To begin with, the changes are less significant. No classes are going away. Replacing the word "race" with "species" has generated plenty of commentary on this forum, but does anyone deeply care? For real? The tone of the game isn't changing: we get to keep our devils and demons, and our Gynosphinxes remain safely demure. No one is getting rid out of town on a rail, and there isn't a powerful woman taking charge that we can focus hateful rhetoric upon. There's just a lot of argument about fairly petty details, which will cause more drama than it should, but nothing like 2e did, IMO.
No parallels are exact- that's why there is a difference between an analogy and an identity. But I do think this is the most
like of the prior edition changes simply because this is the one where they are trying to maintain that backwards compatibility, and yet still receiving pushback. One of the reasons it might not seem as similar to you is because you are not part of the angry contingent this time.
But replace "anger over Gygax" with "anger over the OGL." And "anger over the PG direction" with "anger over the PC direction." Even some things that are completely switched are similar- for example, people back then were angry that they called it a new edition because it was just the "same stuff" and a cash grab. Now, they are angry that they aren't calling it a new edition and, um, it's a cash grab.
That said, and much to my current shame, I was also part of the angry contingent back then. And, I have to admit, I will get in the occasional grog-fight when someone mistakes 2e for 1e, because OH NOES THEY ARE NOT THE SAME!!11!!!!!11!
But TBH, the same way that you now look at people and ask, "Does anyone really care, for real, about the changes...." That's the exact same way people look back at the 1e/2e changes.
To borrow a quip I am sure you are familiar with-
Q. Why were the disputes about 1e and 2e so vicious?
A. Because the stakes were so small.
While I hope for something different this time around, I am not confident that will be the case. Anyway, I thought it would spark a good conversation, and also help me procrastinate in terms of writing that second dice post.