Inspiration Still Doesn't Work For Me

I don't like Inspiration in 5e - while the rules as written seem to be broadly fine, the major issue I have is they I have to keep track of five "roleplaying" elements for each PC and remember to actually give Inspiration.

In that regard my revised Inspiration rule works better for me - each PC gets a reroll that can be used once per level. Except that that also falls short, because the rerolls become less and less valuable as time goes on and the gaps between levels increase, and because the players just don't use them.

All of which leads me to my latest 5e house-rule: just ignore Inspiration. It isn't replaced by anything; you just don't get it. Other means of gaining Advantage do, of course, apply.

Hopes for 5e Essentials

Shortly after my previous post, WotC announced that they're going to release new versions of the core rulebooks in 2024. These don't represent a new edition, as such, but are far closer in scope to a .5 edition. Or, indeed, describing them as "5e Essentials" would make much more sense, as they're intended to be fully compatible with the existing books, in a way that 3.5e wasn't quite with 3.0e.

In truth, it's quite unlikely that I'll be buying these books. I'm very strongly leaning towards my view that I'm just done with D&D as a whole, and as such this would represent a poor investment of £100 or so.

Still, there are some things I would hope for in a new version of the game, and if all of these were met I might just be tempted:

• Firstly, no actual rules changes. The game should indeed remain compatible, which means that the core set of main rules should remain intact.
• Secondly, and the big one, is that I'd like to see the various changes that WotC feel the need to make to excise 'problematic' material done and dusted - lance the boil so we can move on. I'm not actually sure whether that's possible, as I fear it's most likely a moving target, but I can hope.
• As a consequence of that, it seems likely that the new rule that you can assign a +2 and a +1 as you see fit, regardless of 'lineage' (still hate that term, but it seems to be the one they've chosen), will be standard. In which case, we'll need new versions of the mountain dwarf and human.
• Some of the classes and subclasses could use work, notably the Ranger. In particular, I'd ideally like to see every class have at least 3 subclass options, and would definitely like to see those be more playable options - in particular the Assassin, Battle Master, and Wild Magic all cause problems for one reason or another, making their parent classes very limiting.
• It's time to drop alignment. Yes, that's a wrench for traditionalists, but frankly it's something that should have been done as soon as 4e divorced it from the last of its mechanical effects. And with the issues with problematic material they have, it really is time for it to go.
• There is a lot of small-scale errata that should be made.
• The DMG could do with an almost complete rewrite. The material is mostly fine (though of shockingly limited actual utility), but badly organised, confusing, and generally in need of a really good polish.
• Conversely, the MM needs almost all of the rules material redone, with the rest of it being fine. One of the great weaknesses here is that the MM needs to include all the most iconic monsters of the game, but is also developed early in the edition cycle. This inevitably means that it can't benefit from the years of lessons the designers pick up afterward. These new versions represent an ideal time to fix the stat blocks, so let's see it done.
• Better bindings, as the originals were unacceptably poor.
• Likewise, a proper index is a must.

And that that. If all of that were done, such that we got a significantly better version (or, indeed, if only the final four were done, such that we got a significantly better version), I'd probably be inclined to invest the money.