First, if you want crossword puzzles that are challenging, clever, and don’t rely on the same handful of obscure words, the current New York Times puzzles are very good, as are Stanley Newman’s in New York Newsday, Merl Riegel’s, Henry Hook’s, Rich Norris’ puzzles in the LA Times… you don’t HAVE to settle for bad puzzles.
I write puzzles and games semi-professionally (I’ve had puzzles published in many leading newspapers, including the NY Times), and I can tell you this: since taking over at the Times, Will Shortz has changed the nature of the puzzle. The previous editor, Eugene Maleska, liked puzzles that used obscure words, thinking the puzzle should be educational. Shortz (and most of the other constructors and editors I mentioned) believe that there shouldn’t be any words in a crossword that a reasonably well-educated person wouldn’t know off the top of his head. For them, the emphasis is on clever clues, NOT on obscure entries.
Also, Shortz and those others are VERY tough on what they call “Crosswordese.” You know what those are- words like ADIT (mine entrance), ESNE (medieval laborer), ERNE (sea bird), ARIL (seed covering)… words that NOBODY knows, except for crossword buffs who see them all the time. I try VERY hard to avoid such words, and I guarantee this: if I submit a puzzle with more than 1 such words, the editors I mentioned will reject it automatically.
Now, as a constuctor, I CAN tell you this: it’s not easy to make a puzzle without using words like that! Ever play Scrabble? You know what it’s like toward the end when the board is getting filled up, and you’re stuck with a bunch of vowel, plus an L and an R? It gets tough to come up with words that will fit, doesn’t it? You start resorting to ANY word in the dictionary, just to use up your letters, right? Well, that’s essentially the dilemma a constructor of crosswords faces. It’s VERY easy to get stuck in a corner with a couple of E’s and an S, and wind up almost forced to use ESSE (Latin for “to be”) or ESTE (“commedia del _”).
The standard, syndicated puzzles that get reprinted in most of the mainstream newspapers still do things the old-fashioned way… and while I don’t like that, I understand it. MOST crossword solvers are still elderly folks. And when elderly folks get used to things being a certain way, they raise Cain when changes occur. Will Shortz got a lot of hate mail when he first took over, from seniors who LIKED to sit at the kitchen table with the Times puzzle and a Oxford ENglish Dictionary, and spend all day on a puzzle.
So, the OP should know… even if the newspaper replaced the puzzle you hate with a more clever, mopdern one, there’d be thousands of people who LIKE the current puzzle who’d be just as steamed as yo uare now.