AD&D has the race x is only surprised 1 time in 12, while race b surprises his opponents 5 times in 8 nonsense as well.
sorry for the random drive by,
D&D has always had its own brand of strange that has gotten baked into the crust over the last 30 years.
I’ve played DnD on and off for the last 35 years or so. I always found 1st Edition overly complicated. I agree that any system can be fun with a good GM and the right players. But the system itself will dictate how strategic or crunchy the combat is. These days I want systems that play fast without a lot of chart lookup. I found it in Fantasy Flight’s “Edge of the Empire” system which I have most experience as a GM. Eventually I’ll try out 5e, but right now, “Edge” is what me and my player’s want.
After a couple weeks, I’m enjoying the game and getting used to the system. I do like the proficiency system and splitting things up more than simply “Roll against Intelligence”. I also appreciate the simple elegance of the Advantage/Disadvantage system over a million +/- modifiers. I’m not really familiar with the combat system so far; I get the general idea of it but since the DM does the mechanics behind the screen, I just roll the d20, add my bonus and let him know. Not sure how it scale from fighting goblins at level two to fighting storm giants at level fifteen (or whenever you fight storm giants these days).
Really though, as I suspected, much of it is just having a decent DM and the mechanics are largely just something to keep it organized. I’ve noticed that D&D combat these days is much more oriented around miniatures and tactical movement. Way back in the day you had people who used them (usually considered the hard core players) but I was more likely to just announce stuff and maybe sketch something if it was too confusing to describe. Now everything is on laminated graph sheets with figures or chits or other markers. It works and I’m not complaining but it was new. I bought a halfling ranger figurine though so now I’m committed 
I’m still of the opinion that a little more defined separation between classes and abilities would be nice but that’s just an opinion.
I haven’t read through all my 5e core books, but supposedly 5e made miniatures optional and combat could be made in a more abstract method.
It very well may have but all the games I see played around my local shop are still revolving around miniatures combat.
“Miniatures” being used somewhat loosely here. I’ve seen people using painted figures that actually look like their characters, people using plain unpainted figures, people using cardboard pictures with little stands, people using figures from other board games, people just putting down a D12 and saying “This is my guy”, etc. But they’re all using something even if they aren’t investing in a million dollars worth of figurines.
My DM prefers a no-map, no-miniatures style of play, and was excited that 5e promised that, but has lately been having to back off on that a bit, because there are a fair number of situations where exact positions are relevant, and it’s too tough to keep track. I think he got tired of takebacks for things like “Wait, if I can’t hit the kuo-toa with a lightning bolt without also getting the barbarian in the area, then I’m going to use a stinking cloud, instead”.
I hate it when GMs think the players are mindreaders and get annoyed when we don’t grasp the whole battlefield’s every detail from their vague descriptions. Even a quick pencil sketch that doesn’t show the scale can help a ton for anything more complicated than one enemy in one big room. Saves a lot of time as well exactly because that sort of “wait, I can’t do that?” situations.
Using a map and figures to represent the characters (in my group we use magic markers and LEGO figures) isn’t really what is meant by “miniature gaming.” That generally refers to a particular playstyle that emphasizes positioning and requires a map and some kind of grid/measurement system for the ruleset to work.
4e’s combat system required a grid to make it work, and a lot of folks criticized it for that. 5e moved back to combat that’s a lot easier to abstract, but I’ve rarely played in a game that doesn’t use some sort of representation for the map and characters.
There’s always been a map and grid involved in the games I’ve seen/played. I was just saying that not everyone has a case full of lovingly handpainted figures.
Oh, this doesn’t describe my DM: Like I said, he was allowing takebacks, after all. And while he was getting annoyed by the miscommunications, he wasn’t annoyed at us.
Though personally, I do prefer a map and miniatures (but don’t care whether those miniatures are hand-painted pewter or scraps of cardboard). Better to just make all of that clear from the outset.