Miss 4e D&D

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This has given me some insight as to perhaps why I never had any problem with Skill Challenges. I was always the DM during 4e. And I always made it my mission to ensure that the game never felt to "gamist" to my players. They always had the feel like they were playing D&D, irrespective of edition. While I was always acutely aware of things like "monster roles", "XP Budgets", and "Skill Challenge complexity" (to include tracking of successes and failures). And I always made room for creative solutions from my players.

An interesting juxtaposition with this: there's definitely a group of 4e fans who think that look behind the curtain is good, so they want players to know about SC success mechanics, XP budgets, and monster roles, because they think it enhances the experience. Here's a relevant post from AbdulAlhazred from last year that mentions transparency being part of the draw for them, with a bunch of +1s from the forum's various 4e fans.

I'm definitely more on your side, where I find the game plays better if I make the mechanics intentionally opaque, or offer avenues to ignore them entirely (e.g. creative solutions circumventing a SC). That's apparently not a popular opinion in most 4e fan circles. Different strokes I suppose.