D&D's Latest Books Take 5E To New Places - Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel and Spelljammer Review

I started with turquoise/white Basic box and soon switched to AD&D back in the day. But at one point, I got a look at the Basic set from the B/X releases, and even then I was impressed by the well-organized rulebook.

That’s the Holmes 1977 Basic D&D. I’ve never read it. Supposedly it is a mostly uninspired restatement of original white box D&D, with a few things from AD&D. It doesn’t get much love.

Y’all think too much. Use the rules that work, dump everything else.

D&D was invented by a wargame designer. It started life as a medieval tank combat game. You need to ignore all the parts that look like Tactics II.

At that point, judging one ruleset against another makes little sense.

The original B/X rules, as published in 1981, are probably the best-organized rulebooks TSR ever put out, for whatever that's worth. There are other candidates like the Rules Cyclopedia, but that ones just such a massive tome that I find it a little cumbersome as an all-in-one prospect.

But dysjunct is right, if you want to play B/X you are really better off just playing something like Old School Essentials or Labyrinth Lord. OSE is literally identical, and it's way easy to use at the table.