DnD is not simple. The to hit mechanic is.
RM uses the same mechanic, but as is the systems design, stages the level of success with A thru E crits.
What is not needed is the all the extra filler that the tables represent. Executing the RM combat mechanic could be meade much cleaner.
I hope no one misunderstands how much I like RM. It is my rpg of choice. On the other hand, I know life is about change and learning and will not shirk from it. Considering how different each of my fellow posters home games seem to be, I don't think they do either. Yet tradition is no reason to keep something just for the sake of tradition, particularly when the traditional approach seems to be failing. What do i mean by failing?
Two big hobby shops around here: Riders and Cobble Stone. Neither has any RM materials. The game boards do not list a single RM game recruiting. I can tell you, just 10 years ago, this was not the case. With Grand Valley State, Hope College, Albion, Calvin and several other colleges in the area, I can easily find a GAME, but not RM, and typically, none of the youth have heard of it.
Gamer geeks have not changed over the years. We still go to the local hobby store and puruse the shelves for whats new, buy the occassional card, board, war and rpg to take home and check out, have a few freinds over to give it a try, learn the rules and see if it fires up the inmagination.
RM's critical system does a GREAT job of firing up the imagination. The charts are a bit tedious, the crits are wonderful. Simplify how to generate crits and focus on the criticals.
Imagine an entire new way to classify the crits. Light wounds, medium wounds and severe wounds for slash crush and puncture. The weapon determines if the wound delivered is light, medium or severe. Gone are the one size fits all slash, crush and puncture crit tables.
Whatever. As long as the result is simplier attack resolution, be that through a Ten Million Ways to Die type of attack table (ala MERP) or an entire new target number system, the change should be fairly radical yet maintain the core mechanic of progressive damage/success.