Rules-Lite OSR Fantasy

Reinventing the OSR Game
I have recently become enamored with what I will call old school distillation games. These are ultra simple reductionist adventure game systems that draw their inspiration from the oldest version of the world's most popular adventure game, distill its essential concepts down to the basics and re-imagine simpler (modern) mechanics to achieve a similar goal.
I am finding there are a number of these and most of the ones I have looked at are quite clever and workable as a game. Many have a feel similar to a board game version of the White Box, although I am not quite sure why that is since there is no board other than our usual tabletop. My guess is that the simplified rule mechanics and an emphasis on dungeon crawling has a lot to do with the boardgame feel.
Lite rules are not a new thing in our hobby. Way back when, there were attempts at making introductory adventure games that usually used one or two six-sided dice and just a few simple rules. Character stats were minimal or non existent and an adventurer was often an adventurer - no class differences, no skill lists.

Fighting Fantasy: The Introductory Role-playing Game is one such product which sought to bridge the gap between adventure game books (where you would choose your path) to a tabletop role-playing experience with a group around a table using very simple rules.

Microlite 74 (copyright 2008) has been around practically from the beginning of the old school movement and represents more of an attempt to recreate the authentic feel of 0e play than to stamp the author's unique twist on the basics of the original rules. This adding of something unique of the author's own design is what sets the more recent re-imagining's apart from early simulacrum. The question I have is whether the games mentioned in this post are just for introducing folks to the hobby, or for running a short series of games as something different, or whether they can sustain long-term play?

What interests me most about the current crop of rules lite DIY (introductory) games is their OSR nature, their relationship to White Box, and the fresh approach each author has taken to simple mechanics. Games like Swords & Six-Siders, Maze Rats, Untold Adventures and The Black Hack all reference OSR style game-play as their inspiration and offer their unique system as a creative reinterpretation of the game experience the authors of White Box sought to design and share in their original creation. Certain White Box era elements remain, including random chargen, fast, abstract combat, saving throws, reaction tables, monster morale, the conversational nature of the game experience and a reliance on player skill.

Another point of interest is that their authors have creatively sought to improve upon the original in one or more ways. Many of these systems use roll under an attribute score (ala B/X) as a universal mechanic. Armor is often dealt with in an alternate way (such as reducing damage) and magic varies a bit from system to system, but all the games I am thinking of seem to be able to instill a bit of unique flavor through their combat, spell lists, spell descriptions, or spell effects. On the one hand, I see these products as setting out to do something similar to what Professor Holmes did with the LBBs, to produce a user friendly, beginner version of the game, but on the other hand I think they are breaking new ground by using new mechanics in clever ways to give the hobby something fresh and fun, to show us something we have not thought of and make available something to excite us all over again.

Old school with a new twist!