Re: Original D&D books. The first edition I have was a boxed set with three hand-stapled manuals, a few dice, and some other stuff. Almost everybody I knew had played with those -- yet modified them to suit whatever their own preferences were. Chainmail rules were a separate supplement, if I remember right, and supported the movement from minutures wargaming scenarios to supporting single player fantasy combat. (Do a google search and you can find way more history of D&D than I can pull out of my memory! Most of it will probably even be more accurate.)
I've played Sacred, by the way. IMO, there's little to the game beyond hack, slash, and kill the monsters who did x bad thing. That said, it was a *fun* hack & slash game and I'll probably go back to it if I can't fix my current BD woes. I did have a hard time getting used to the interface, but it wasn't a real dexterity challenge, simply old habits from too much time in visual studio and too little in actual games.
I also did like Planescape: torment, although the CD died before I managed to finish it. A game called 'Soulbringer' (which I got in the same boxed set) was a better RP challenge to me, however. I liked the way that each kind of magic you used had different side-effects on your character. AND it lasted past the point where I had finished the game. The only bad part was the relative linearity of the story.
Dervish