X Wing has two editions because the first got “un-fixable” without a major overhaul and too many people needed it to work competitively, which is testament to the quality of the core game concepts, that people wanted to fix it, when they could just walk away.
Was enough done? I thing enough was done within the parameters of “keep it close to the original”, but not everything that could have been done was, but anyway, there is no doubting that there was enough to make the game vibrant, logical and reasonably future proof.
The other option, taken by the “softer”, less combative community was to simply modify or remove the more troublesome elements to try to re-capture the earlier games balance and brilliance.
Bare Bones is our fix. It simply removes non-named (generic or loosely connected) Titles, Elite Pilot Talents and Modifications, which are all part of the over bloated, fix-the-fixes syndrome that bought the game down. Later 1e suffered from a top 10% only dynamic, with older ships requiring some major bandaid measures to see any table time, not always successfully, many of these requiring their own re-balancing fixes etc (and many were an imagination stretch at best) until it got to the stage where there was often only one good way to play/build a small group of competitive ships and the rest (the majority) became useless to all but the most open minded casual players.
The game started to look more like a Magic The Gathering style deck builder than a miniatures based game, but worse, it had a real insiders knowledge edge that excluded a lot of want to be players.
It also led to a lot of non-canon weirdness, which if that annoys you (yup), then another wall is erected between you and satisfying game play.
Bare Bones seems to have fixed much of this.
Goodby to multi layered action chains, nullified ship and pilot uniqueness and token stacking. This has made some ships pretty vanilla, but guess what? Squad tactics have come to the fore, much in keeping with the source material and the core concepts of the system a pretty balanced. Your 4 Tie Advanced squad may seem pretty lame, but they are up against 4 X Wings with no S-Foils, Expert Handling, Vectored Thrusters etc, so they are equally “lame”. X Wing still offers considerably more in build and ship variety than say Wings of Glory or even Attack Wing.
This is a balance achieved by turning back the clock to the point when the core game concepts ruled.
Ships now fly in formation for support, not relying on tricky action chains as their primary defence. Many ships only have their Pilot Talent as a point of difference, but that is fine. Pilot Skill, Pilot Talent and raw ship capabilities, mixed with more of the same (but different) gives you plenty to build with, then you fly on these merits alone. To be honest, on a level playing field, there are too many options to try them all. Conversely, if even more layers of synergy were added, would the game be better?
The design principles are there, they have just been swamped by more and more options.
Classic X Wing
The really cool thing though, is that BB 1e is a great jumping off point for 2e. The play is similar, just deeper. The 4-6 card monster builds that made the competitive 1e combos have been replaced by sometimes bare ships, but in numbers, which is similar to the cleaner presentation in 2e. This is helping a newer player learn the real basics, then move into to the linked actions and more varied manoeuvre choices of 2e, without unlearning the tangled web of competitive 1e.
A lot of the things nerfed or seamlessly blended into 2e are a natural fit, removing most of the mod cards that rankled and at the same time simplifying the game dynamic for players and designers. Many of the more troublesome upgrades have been dropped completely and the overall fit is natural and logical. The fell of 2e is surprisingly similar to BB, just with more moving parts.