DIE, TWENTY!
It has come to my attention that many D&D players spend a great deal of time, energy and effort complaining about core concepts in the system: Alignment, Class, Level, the Magic System, incompatibility between optional rules sets, and even things that exist at the setting level rather than the mechanical level, such as the perponderance of monsters
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You can make anything work in the system. Between feats, skills, classes, and alternate magic systems (there are a few already, and three new ones are on their way in the new Tome of Magic -- and you can always invent your own!), you can make whatever flavor you want. Heck, someone out there made a Gummi Bears world for D&D--imagine that, a D&D system with a non-violent core.
Some of the best RP sessions I've had involved no rules at all, or at least, no rules references. No miniatures, no dice, and the character sheets were looked at only for notes and names and such. That could have happened in any 'system', because the system wasn't in use at the time (one case happened to be Werewolf, another was D&D).
The trick to having fun with a game is not the system, it's not the story, it's not how well your dice roll -- it's the players. Finding the right blend of people is critical. The art of running a game is to give each individual their own reason to come back every session and play--be it the role-play fans or tacti-play fans, the lawyers or the legiphobes, the misfits or butterflies. If you don't have the right blend, or the game master isn't quite a Master at catering to a group with diverse and/or opposing interests, you're going to run into problems, regardless of the system.
You can change over to the new WarHammer, and do nothing but percentiles, and have guns explode in PCs faces, and have your mages go insane or get swallowed by the earth, and never have to worry about Challenge Rating and Levels and XP formulas and tables or any such nonsense ... but give it 2-20 years, and the publisher will change versions 3 times, and publish supplements out the yinyang--and it may very well get old, and annoying, and people will squabble, and folks will stop having fun, and finally want to try "something new" .. like D&D, say.
Sometimes, a change in scenery is enough to break people of their habits and preconceptions, and get them to refocus on what gaming is all about. If that's what it takes to start having fun again, go for it. Maybe you'll find a 'system' that fits everyone better, but every system has its cons -- odds are good that once all the edges of the pros are nicked and blunted, all you'll have left are cons, and it'll again be time for something new.
Barring that, go watch Gamers when it comes out (if you're near Beverly Hills, there's a screening on the 21st). It might well be a fun movie. :D
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That's the most consistent entertainment value I've gotten out of this whole silly hobby in the last decade. Somehow, hearing someone say, "What's the point? Everyone's just gonna wind up playing D&D anyway" just doesn't strike me as useful or productive.
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