Alex
Arcane
You are so blinded by nostalgia. You could just as well be speaking about 3E here.
(...snip)
Hey, I never said 3e didn't do this too. In fact, 1st level spells in 3e are pretty good too, if somewhat more restrictive. I seem to remember you are not supposed to use magic missiles on inanimate things, for example, and we never got chromatic orb ported to 3e on an official sourcebook, as far as I know. Also, I missed the fireballs that expanded up to their max volume, though this is neither here nor there.
Also, I don't have nostalgia for this style of play. I actually played my first 1e game after I had played 3e. And even when I played 2e, I didn't play much in this exploiting mode that is so fun in 1e because I never had any idea it would be fun. For example, a player might have a magic missile in the form of an eye beam. I would probably not allow him to rebound his beam on a mirror because I would think this would be against the rules. Only later did I figure how much fun this can be.