@Items
2nd edition is a game of incredible fuck-tons of useless crap that someone carries in a portable hole because there are edge cases where some of it makes for good fridge-logic moments. If someone breaks your sword, well, you have fifty spare magic swords. You're also wearing a cloak of the manta-ray, because it was there, maybe someday you'll get to use it. Man that force-cube thing would've helped in the last fight, if we'd remembered it. LOL.
3e is a game where you need to turn your +3 necklace into +4 necklace because that's next in the queue, and whatever you're finding is fungible toward that goal, including weird +3 spears and transforming cloaks and force-cubes. 4e automates some of that process for you.
Most 3e spells are comparatively crap, huge nerfing went on. But the ease of dropping a the best of the rest onto team monster turned the game on it's ear. Not to mention you get 9th level spells the XP-equivalent of four levels earlier, as if everyone else wasn't already relatively crap up there. Oh, and saves you can't make, and no interruption, and have some more spells, and recover in no time, it's cool, can't possibly hurt. And then Pathfinder did that all over again, because it worked so well the first time.