Pale Imitations

There are no new ideas. A concern of mine I have had for some time was voiced by James Maliszewski at Grognardia almost a month ago:

in the old school movement, the shadow of Gygax (and, to a lesser extent, Arneson) looms every bit as large as does that of Lovecraft in the realm of cosmic horror fiction. The shadow of TSR itself is similarly impressive and rightly so. ... I see a danger in the way many old school products use past products as explicit models, right down to the trade dress, typeface, and layout. ... The same holds true not just for presentation but for content [and] the conflation of elements intended to support content with the content itself.

Indeed. OSRIC has provided a valuable service by producing an open content reference for publishers looking to explicitly develop for AD&D 1E, but games that claim to be new (I'm looking at you, Castles & Crusades) are anything but. They have passed up a perfectly good opportunity to bring a game with old-school feel to today's gamers by confusing the spirit of old school play with specific mechanics which have long been known to be sub-optimal.