Well, WOTC just did a premium edition reprinting of the 3 core 1st ed books (Which I bought) and now I just saw where they have done a premium edition reprinting of the ones for 3.5.

I know that the 1st ed books were to help raise money for a Gygax memorial statue in Lake Geneva and stated so on the packages, but I dont see any mention of that in the online stores for the 3.5 set.

Could this mayhaps be a sign that WOTC has finally figured out what slamming the door shut on the old editions has done to alienate portions of the player base and their support for the game and company? Maybe they are going to start taking steps to make the older stuff available again, like it was a few years ago.

Probably a huge amount of wishful thinking on my part, but who knows. I'm a dreamer!

The sceptic in me thinks they're doing two this for two reasons:
1. To keep a D&D revenue stream going to fund the development of 5e (given that 5e is killing off 4e)
2. To keep the D&D brand on shelf fronts to compete with Pathfinder.

A spin off bonus will be some real market info about $$$ interest in the older versions of D&D (which will help them work out how much back compatibility they will really need in 5e).