Me & 5E

Referee Empowerment
It's been out for a while and I have been playing and running 5E enough now to say there is a lot to like about it. Wizards (WotC) listened to gamers who still find joy in the old game and 5E can be played much like an old school game. It also lends itself to a more 4E style of play, if that is your preference. No game can be all things to all players, but the folks at WotC have made a good attempt with 5E.
What I like about 5E the most can be summed-up as referee empowerment. The 5E books are set-up to give the referee choices - there is wide latitude in how 5E can be played from campaign to campaign. It supports different styles of combat, experience awards, leveling and magic. Chargen can be point-buy or rolled randomly. Combat can use the grid or not. Experience can vary greatly in how the referee awards it and therefore what PC behavior is reinforced. Leveling can include feats and multi-classing, or not.
Support is there for role-playing, but there are no real mechanics tied to role-playing as such (except Inspiration, maybe). Playing the role of one's PC is expected as part of the experience during the game rather than mechanically a part of the game system itself. This facet helps separate 5E from more story-telling games and was the way role-playing happened in older Editions.
Magic is one place where the referee has to be thinking about the specifics of the desired campaign feel. Who has magic? What energizes magic? How common is it's use? How are spells acquired? What is the common reaction to witnessing magic use? The default in 5E seems similar to the default in White Box and other Editions of the World's First RPG. But there is nothing that says one must play default.
Customizing magic, monsters, PC classes and races, deities, tech level, alignment, the balance of "good" and "evil", within the game are all classic ways to make a setting feel unique. The modular nature of 5E lends itself to modification and the referee is not likely to break the game by modification.
I will end this post near where I began, with referee empowerment. Some may wonder why I would be concerned with referee empowerment, after all don't referees have all the power? In White Box play when a referee creates a unique dungeon, world, etc. of their own it probably is obvious. In a hobby like today where games are likely to have more extensive rules and require few referee rulings; where published settings and organized play are the norm, it may not seem so obvious that referees have power. All too often the role of the referee is to read the box text and roll dice for the monsters. I have read many blogs about players and roll playing verses role playing. The roll playing referee is a less often discussed topic. Personally, I appreciate 5E's invitation to get the referee back into the game.