Re: Is Pathfinder Dead on this site???
The business model is actually that of the auto industry--a new model HAS to come out every year. To me, that's like saying they still can't get it right.
2E, unfortunately, was a road bump. Its major claim to 'fame' was the concept of the Kit. With 1st Ed, everyone kept making up their own character class... I don't know if anyone was ever able to index them all, but Dragon magazine was always publishing a new one or, worse, another version. I seem to recall that there were three separate versions of the Bounty Hunter published.
Players, GMs in particular, tended to be very creative, and making up new classes was an outlet for that creativity. In a way, it was like they were saying, 'If I had done D&D, I'd have had the Banana Peeler, the Coconut Cracker and the Arse-kicker classes.'
Anyway, the Kits were the replacement for that. I think there were even more Kits created than Classes.
2E came about because the industry had graduated from the scratchpad publishing style to a more sophisticated product, and it was now realized that those 'kids' who'd started out playing AD&D were now all grown up, still playing and willing to spend their hard-earned money on a better product. So 2E was a publishing upgrade. Unfortunately, TSR was a day late and a dollar short.
Somewhere in the mix, I can remember Castle Falkenstein coming out at the local bookstore. Compared to everything else that was on the market then (at least all that I'd seen), CF was light years ahead of the industry in terms of art, layout, and overall quality. That was the benchmark that TSR was trying to achieve, and realized they'd missed it with 2E.
2E had another problem: multiple campaign books. What TSR failed to realize was that every player that had $10 to spend could only afford one of those campaigns. So every new one they came out with split the fan base into 6-7 different products. That essentially guaranteed that none of them would be financially successful.
3E came about for several reasons. I won't disagree that WotC might not have wanted to put their own stamp on the game--probably more like 'this is how we would have done it' or 'look how shiny we made it!'. Primarily, though, it came about because 2E no longer met the industry standards.
So now that WotC wanted to put out a better product, they also considered upgrades to the game itself. Most of this came from comments at conventions, but letters sent in also had something to do with it. Essentially, players kept saying 'this is how we REALLY play'. I ran across a lot of players who'd adopted the 'positive AC system' long before 3E came out.
So, there really wasn't a single reason for 3E.
4E was done because WotC found that D&D players were leaving the game in droves. I think most of that was because they were growing up and getting lives. But WotC thought they could appeal to the video gamers, and tried to create a game that played like a video game. Personally, I think they succeeded, which is why I never liked 4E. I just don't think video gamers wanted to bother reading any books, so that market was never really there.
5E was 'lessons learned'... finally. That's not to say they aren't making new mistakes. In theory, any previous version of D&D is supposedly 'compatible' with 5E, though I've never tried to test that. Might have been interesting at a convention, though.
Anyway... 3E was, first and foremost, meant as an upgrade to the new paradigm of the industry, which was Castle Falkenstein. I've yet to see anything that has surpassed that.