I know, I know, resurrecting an old topic, but I got to thinking about this today. Since it has been 6 months now, I wonder if I could go ahead and open up my pre-4e .pdf library to the public for free. I mean, I'm not hurting their sales, because their not selling any, right?  

If customers don't see it, then they won't buy it because they assume it isn't available. The reason the pdfs are no longer available has absolutely nothing to do with piracy. It's all about funneling the gamers into the 4th edition crapper. The presence of the 4th edition quickstart in PDF lends credence to this.

Hasbro is blind to the revolution, and that is a mistake. They are continuing the same old song and dance, claiming that the older editions are crap because they are old, and failing to realize that the game they've made breaks so completely from what came before that people are getting turned off, preferably towards the older editions of the game (anything pre d20 is fine by me) or towards Castles & Crusades.

The retro clones cannot figure into this discussion because the "fair number of players" you metion is really small compared to the players who aren't connected to the Internet. 10% at best IIRC.

I do agree however that someone needs to take the game off Hasbro's hands, before we get D&D HeroClix. Oh wait...that's the upcoming edition of Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay.