Add-Vance or Sub-Vance?

Allow me to preface this by saying that I have not read any of the D&DNext development releases in detail.

Having said that, I am abreast of the development trends, thanks mostly to Tavernmaster Tenkar and his regular updates. The latest brouhaha is swirling around the inclusion of At-Will Powers for Magic Users Wizards. This is but one of many Bones of Contention the designers will be faced with. They are trying to merge disparate systems. Some of the subsystems are going to be mutually exclusive. What 4E player is going to want to have his At-Will Blaster Ray watered down so his Wizard will be balanced next to the old geezer's Vancian Magic User? What old geezer will be content to blow his wad on memorizing nothing but Magic Missiles, when the 4E rock star wizard can toss them out like Mardi Gras beads?

I'm developing a certain detached cynicism with this whole "Next" development. I may end up eating those words if they do succeed in rolling out the best thing since . . . well, since D&D. Until then I view this entire episode with a certain smug detachment.

Something about this particular point struck me, though. Ever since the words "house rules" were first uttered, Vancian magic has been under the gun. I have no scientific proof to back this up, but I would bet the farm that making combat more realistic and Vancian magic are the top two house rule categories. Spell points, casting rolls, lumping all the caster's available spell levels into one enormous pool, fatigue, it goes on and on. In the callous inexperience of my youth, I, too, railed against it. I still like alternatives, although I can now appreciate the intricacies of it. For years I preferred point-based casting. Now I like something a little more unpredictable, but I digress.

Now that Monte has forwarded the notion of some sort of 4E-style At-Will powers for Wizards, there is no shortage of champions for Vancian magic. All of a sudden it is one of the gilded chestnuts, a virtual cornerstone of the foundation, of what is D&D. I'm not accusing anyone of vacillating, just observing how polarizing events brings out the masses. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that many of those rallying behind Vancian casters have house ruled that system out to some degree. Maybe they even play with a different magic system even now. I fall into that camp, since I am currently mostly working with the M74 Swords & Sorcery Edition. Yet, even those in that camp recognize the value of Vancian magic to D&D. My snide comments aside (made only in fun, btw), Vancian magic is one of the underpinnings that makes D&D D&D. In any sort of "Edition to Rule Them All" it has to take center stage, and it has to be the standard against which any other included magic methods, no matter how "modular", are balanced.