Extensive scientific analysis done by top men has indicated that 3.5 is the best edition of D&D created so far. Even newton's laws and gravity are not as certain as this fact. Thank you for your time.

I'm not going to argue with these men's credentials, but was the study conducted after 5e's release, and does it factor in content beyond the core books?

I asked those questions and was assured that the study was conducted by top men. And yes to both of those questions.

The elite are still oblivious to the outlook of the common folk I see.

Top Men Sarcasm: Part 1, Part 2

Wait, is this some sort of Edition War (tm) thread? I've not seen one of these things pop up in years. Um...how does this go again....now I remember..

Ehem..."Top Men" are wrong. 3.5 (and really all of 3rd in general) was the downfall of the game. If it weren't for 3.5 and its open license, Pathfinder would never have happened and D&D wouldn't be competing with itself to this day. 4th Ed was wildly successful for being the very first edition of the game that had to compete with the anchor of Pathfinder around its neck. 5th Ed, while being a bit reactionary and a step back in some regards, has done an excellent job marrying the progress of 4th Ed and the nostalgia of older editions.

I suspect it was more WOTC's business practices surrounding the release of 3.5 and 4th ed that lead to the downturn. Developers were assured that their 3rd ed projects would be compatible with 3.5; that's what triggered the D20 collapse.
WOTC left the industry in a state of limbo between 3rd and 4th ed where nobody knew what to prepare for. That's why Pathfinder came into the picture.

Objective fact 1: 4e has the best combat out of all D&D editions.

Objective fact 2: If you want to run a RPG with a reduced emphasis on combat, you shouldn't be playing D&D.

Ergo, 4e is the best D&D edition. This conclusion is even more ironclad than 1+1=2. Checkmate, gd1w.

I actually just picked up some 3e books today.
From what I understand 4e barely qualifies as an RPG. It comes close to being a tactical combat simulator. Going 4e isn't going for lots of combat- it's going for all the combat. Mahap I am a neonate, but no combattier system occurs to me.
I suspect that 3rd really is the best edition. They learned a lot from Runequest by that point and managed to pull together a product so coherent that it no longer appeared to have been drafted on bar napkins.
I hear good things about Cypher System, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion. I might end up running GLOG some day.

I trimmed all the useless words in your post.

4e took out all the roleplaying parts because it did not feel the need to adjudicate them. Want to roleplay a diplomatic encounter? Then roleplay it, why let dice get in the way? Why do you need someone to create a system for NPC attitudes? Just talk to the NPC and roleplay it instead of rolling dice against DC to move the NPC through tiers of friendliness. 4e only steps in when it feels like rules serve a purpose (combat).

In my opinion, 4e is more abstract than the other editions, because it leaves everything that doesn't have to do with balance out. It created a balanced skeleton for GMs and players to then dress up and re-skin however they want. "This class can stun at this level. How? It's up to you, here's some general flavor to start with. This other non-magic class can heal because HP is abstract and rallying you to your feet is just as legitimate. Or maybe it is magic, it's up to you."

It just was not what people expected from D&D and/or WotC did not present it correctly. 3.X is highly granular, so maybe that is what people were expecting going into the next edition.

Isn't there a Diplomacy skill in 4e?

There is, and it is mostly used for Skill Challenges and as a hold-over for players who just want to roll dice instead of roleplay encounters. That being said, I really wish 4th Ed had done a better job conveying Skill Challenges. Often they weren't run correctly and the examples in the book were pretty droll. Watching Chris Perkins seamlessly incorporate them in the Acquisitions INC. games and reading how some GMs built really nice 3rd party challenges, I was left with disappointment at what Wizards gave players to work with as a starting point.

I forget which book, maybe the DMG 2, had examples of escalating levels of complexity/scale for skill challenges. The most complex example was one that was used as the mechanic for traveling around the city with strictly divided quarters; it was really good as a way to make the city come alive and simulate the strict social conditions of the city.

I think 4e in general has strong tools that they did not teach people starting on the system to use well (and of course, a lot of it comes from just experience and confidence) and that do not appeal to simulationists, who make up a large section of D&D players.

Agreed, though having issues that were fixed in later books like the DMG 2 and in the Essentials line is always little comfort in these discussions. The people who weren't happy with what they got went to go play Pathfinder instead of sticking around waiting for things to get better. That's why I contend that 3rd Ed did more to kill D&D than any other version of the game. For the first time ever, players weren't "forced" to move to the new system and adjust to it. They could just continue on with Pathfinder or their ginormous library of 3.0/3.5 content. The transitions from 1st to 2nd and then to 3rd were not near as turbulent because there weren't meaningful options to latch on to. You could cling to your old system, and it could still be fun, but the player-base mostly had to move on and you eventually had to move with it if you wanted to find a gaming group.