Yah, the complexity of the 1st/2nd/3rd editions of Earthdawn did tend to burn people out.

I really like the way they've streamlined the system for 4th edition. It has removed a bunch of "table-lookups" from handling any individual dice roll, and all "X happens at Y success level" powers have been standardized to the new success level mechanic (basically, you get an additional success level for every +5 scored over the target number, and no longer have to remember what different "success level names" meant for different target numbers).

They really have gone to a "Standardized Mechanic" for all the dice-rolls and it's recommended that you only change Steps if something major happens - all temporary modifiers can be applied to the Result of the roll with no real statistical problems, and they re-worked the secondary stats like the Defenses to make more intuitive sense (now: Physical/Mystic/Social).

Getting back to the thread topic, ED also had an adventure supplement for Parlainth called Parlainth Adventures by Robin D. Laws. I played through part of one of those arcs as a player, and it was very interesting to see the contrast of "Haven" (the small town carved out of one corner of the broken city wall) and the corrupted neighborhoods, like the Twists where the streets actually re-arrange themselves from week to week.