Miss 4e D&D

[Kurald Galain]

DMG1 skill challenges no longer feature those things, as per errata.

I just think it's a flexible tool that has gotten an undeserved bad rap,

I'm just noting these two things you say here. SCs got a bad rap after DMG1, and there was errata. This means that regardless of what you personally think about that rap, WOTC thought that it was deserved, and tried to fix it with errata.

And they tried to fix it again with the DMG2 (noting that PHB2/DMG2 attempt to fix several other things that 4E was criticized for) and they tried to fix it a fourth time with the RulCom/DMK. That suggests that the errata didn't make the bad rap go away, so they tried again. And again. The downside of this approach is that (1) people who only read the first books (which is usually a big majority) are stuck with the version that WOTC knows is flawed; and (2) to people who do read all the books, having multiple sets of errata looks very sloppy.

So this boils down to insufficient playtesting (of this part of the game) before the first publication.

It's clear from the PHB1/DMG1 that they put a lot of effort in creating engaging, tactical, and balanced combat; and they've largely succeeded at that. Unfortunately, everything in these books that's not about combat reads as if it's hastily thrown together as an afterthought. That includes SCs, rituals, and a few other sections. WOTC would have gotten much less criticism and controversy if they'd have put a little more effort in those parts rather than try and fix it several times later.