1st ed AD&D was better than 2nd; 2nd is better than 3rd, IMO. 3rd ed has attempted to kill off all creative use of spellcasting, which is unforgivable as it takes most of the fun out of being a mage. The alignment definitions are also the worst of the three systems, and should have been dropped as it's pretty obvious the writers didn't really have any idea of what guidelines to give. 3rd ed has die rolls for everything, and it is a lot harder to play fast and loose with the system, which ruins a lot of the fun for DMs and players alike.
1: Are we still talking cRPGS?
2: What did 1st edition look like?
And what do you mean about spellcasting?
Übereil