Jhamin

I would also say that Icons is a very narrative focused game where as Hero is a very crunch focused game.  There are different schools of gaming and people tend to have very strong opinions about them.
It makes a lot of sense that someone who loves Icons would hate Hero.
 
As for Hero: I feel like the later editions started to have a "The correct way" about them.  This is a special power, that is a standard one, this can or cannot be in a framework... it got tedious and while mechanically more consistent and going a long way to define edge cases, it wasn't making anything better to game with.
 
Personally, I'm all in on 6E but don't let it get in my way either.  I feel the actual mechanics have gotten better but the presentation has gotten dryer, which is the real problem.
I also tend to house rule away the pedantic stuff.  I let the undead hunting martial artist buy "affects desolid" for his Str and let it apply to his maneuvers so he can punch ghosts even though the Ultimate Martial artist is very clear that he has to buy that for each maneuver separately.  Whatever.  Handwave.
 
That said, I think 6e is a lot more coherent that the older editions, which is why I use it.
 
I also think there are a lot of people who love 1 or 3 or 4 because that was what they learned when they were 14 and you never love anything as much as something you discover when you were 14

If you set an AP maximum of 60 points, but allow a 9d6 or 12d6 0 END Blast, then you have made an exception to the AP limit.  That sounds more like a 12 DC limit than a 60 AP limit.

I agree, and I have some thoughts on that, but its a better approach than just stubborn grognardism.
 
To help with this, I give you Chesterton's Fence as a starting point:
 
 

6th edition plays exactly the same as 1st edition, just has more power options to build with.  The combat works the same, the movement works the same, the role playing works the same.  At some point you have to ask what you're having fun with if more options in character building ruins the fun of the game for you.

I would also say that Icons is a very narrative focused game where as Hero is a very crunch focused game.  There are different schools of gaming and people tend to have very strong opinions about them.
It makes a lot of sense that someone who loves Icons would hate Hero.
 
As for Hero: I feel like the later editions started to have a "The correct way" about them.  This is a special power, that is a standard one, this can or cannot be in a framework... it got tedious and while mechanically more consistent and going a long way to define edge cases, it wasn't making anything better to game with.
 
Personally, I'm all in on 6E but don't let it get in my way either.  I feel the actual mechanics have gotten better but the presentation has gotten dryer, which is the real problem.
I also tend to house rule away the pedantic stuff.  I let the undead hunting martial artist buy "affects desolid" for his Str and let it apply to his maneuvers so he can punch ghosts even though the Ultimate Martial artist is very clear that he has to buy that for each maneuver separately.  Whatever.  Handwave.
 
That said, I think 6e is a lot more coherent that the older editions, which is why I use it.
 
I also think there are a lot of people who love 1 or 3 or 4 because that was what they learned when they were 14 and you never love anything as much as something you discover when you were 14

I loved the entire series, and am bummed that was the only season.  Though I did enjoy the ComicCon table read of the never-filmed 13th episode.  
 
"Clarence?!"

I'm still rocking my Middle Man sig here on the Boards.  You are in for a treat.

When me and my group played it, it helped that we were all Comic Nerds and actually *wanted* our supers games to simulate the comics we were reading at the time.  I remember one player feeling put out that there was no way his gadgeteer hero could even hurt the Abomination.. but then when we talked about it we realized he had basically made a Hawkeye type character and those kinds of Heroes would just never fight the Abomination in the comics and if they somehow do the mission is to distract and escape not to actually have Hawkeye take down the Abomination so we shouldn't make his character do that in the game either.  It was basically us self-discovering the idea of campaign limits.  This really prepped me for toolbox games later on
 
The chart was a ton of fun.  The key was to try not to have rolloffs, they weren't fun.  The person initiating the action rolled.  If you wanted to grab someone you rolled your fighting.  If they were actually spending actions resisting you you rolled your fighting vs a difficulty of theirs and the color you needed depended on what the difference was.  It worked if you assumed that most of the time they weren't actually spending an action resisting you, they were spending an action attacking you back & most rolls were largely unopposed.  If their fighting was way better than yours it turned into a question of "how come Kitty Pride can't roll well enough to pin Captain America if he is focusing on keeping her from doing that?", which when you said it out loud made complete sense.
The game specifically called out that they rated things in categories and that if two characters were in the same category that didn't make them the same, it just made them similar enough not to worry about the difference in a world of teenage mutants and Jack Kirby space-gods.  If you actually looked at how comic battles played out in 80s era Marvel Comics the game worked surprising well
 
It was a lot of fun, but had it's limits.  The system's "sweet spot" was from around New Mutants on the low end and the Avengers on the high end.  Street Level Daredevil vs Punisher stuff didn't work right (noone did enough damage, fights lasted forever) and the granularity evaporated once you hit Thor/Silver Surfer level stuff.  Those fights sorta worked, but the cosmic heroes started to all seem super samey stat wise.
 
Also: Defense powers were kind of Over Powered.  The system worked great if you were tough but not actually armored like Spiderman, Thor, Cyclops, etc.  Characters with actual defensive powers like Invisible Woman, Colossus, and Iron Man could outright ignore a lot of threats (like Spence mentions) and it warped encounter building if you had parties that had mixed levels of defense.  There was a strong temptation to make sure all your characters had body armor or force fields because of how efficient they were.  We dealt with that with some home-brewed campaign guidelines that forced PC defenses to all be pretty similar so it was more fun for everyone to participate.

Why should the size of the pool be limited at all?
 
I can think of several reasons, including:
the point of these structures is to make choices, not have everything you want all at once, or there's no reason for the cost break Power Frameworks in part are an exchange of flexibility for power Active Point limits on campaigns aren't just to limit individual power, but to keep powers within a scope which adjustment powers can take effect consistently on them

The thing is, when Champions first came out (not the first superhero game but the biggest and most groundbreaking) most people never really even considered superheroes for role playing.  I mean, where are the dungeons?  What would your levels be like?  What class is Superman?  You had to break people completely free from that mindset.  I'm not sure it would have really taken off much as a genre without Champions.

I hate to be that guy but
 
While "begs the question" meaning "raises the question" has been abused so many times and for long enough that its starting to become standard English, technically it does not mean that.
 
Begs the question is a rhetorical term which means "your argument assumes the conclusion" like "Everyone wants the new iPhone because it is the hottest new gadget on the market!"  That simply restates you conclusion as proof instead of proving or supporting your statement with arguments establishing how it is true.

When me and my group played it, it helped that we were all Comic Nerds and actually *wanted* our supers games to simulate the comics we were reading at the time.  I remember one player feeling put out that there was no way his gadgeteer hero could even hurt the Abomination.. but then when we talked about it we realized he had basically made a Hawkeye type character and those kinds of Heroes would just never fight the Abomination in the comics and if they somehow do the mission is to distract and escape not to actually have Hawkeye take down the Abomination so we shouldn't make his character do that in the game either.  It was basically us self-discovering the idea of campaign limits.  This really prepped me for toolbox games later on
 
The chart was a ton of fun.  The key was to try not to have rolloffs, they weren't fun.  The person initiating the action rolled.  If you wanted to grab someone you rolled your fighting.  If they were actually spending actions resisting you you rolled your fighting vs a difficulty of theirs and the color you needed depended on what the difference was.  It worked if you assumed that most of the time they weren't actually spending an action resisting you, they were spending an action attacking you back & most rolls were largely unopposed.  If their fighting was way better than yours it turned into a question of "how come Kitty Pride can't roll well enough to pin Captain America if he is focusing on keeping her from doing that?", which when you said it out loud made complete sense.
The game specifically called out that they rated things in categories and that if two characters were in the same category that didn't make them the same, it just made them similar enough not to worry about the difference in a world of teenage mutants and Jack Kirby space-gods.  If you actually looked at how comic battles played out in 80s era Marvel Comics the game worked surprising well
 
It was a lot of fun, but had it's limits.  The system's "sweet spot" was from around New Mutants on the low end and the Avengers on the high end.  Street Level Daredevil vs Punisher stuff didn't work right (noone did enough damage, fights lasted forever) and the granularity evaporated once you hit Thor/Silver Surfer level stuff.  Those fights sorta worked, but the cosmic heroes started to all seem super samey stat wise.
 
Also: Defense powers were kind of Over Powered.  The system worked great if you were tough but not actually armored like Spiderman, Thor, Cyclops, etc.  Characters with actual defensive powers like Invisible Woman, Colossus, and Iron Man could outright ignore a lot of threats (like Spence mentions) and it warped encounter building if you had parties that had mixed levels of defense.  There was a strong temptation to make sure all your characters had body armor or force fields because of how efficient they were.  We dealt with that with some home-brewed campaign guidelines that forced PC defenses to all be pretty similar so it was more fun for everyone to participate.

Probably V&V or Marvel FASERIP.  
 
 
In practice, no.  Attacks do a flat amount of damage, so if you're comparing attacks vs. defenses, it's possible to be up against an opponent whose defenses you can't get through.  As with Champions, that means you have to get creative.  Blast the ground under his feet, or blast the tree behind him and knock it down on him, or something else.  

I played a lot of the '80s Marvel Superheroes game (the FASERIP one) and had a good time doing it, but the way their product line worked made the game feel like it was really hard to take it away from it's "simulate Marvel Comics of the '80s" roots and the Character Creation system was so bonkers as to be unworkable without the group basically sitting down & deciding what they were going to play.  I had a good time & still think of it fondly, but my group had moved on for several years and bounced off GURPS Supers (too bloody) when we found Hero, in the form of the 4E Big Blue Book in the early '90s.
 
Had Hero not existed there is a good chance I wouldn't be playing supers at all.

When my heroes ended up in Japan I ended up having them meet Zen Squad from the old 4e Allies book.  I'm actually a power rangers fan so the part where they are all employees of a big company that somehow work at an orphanage & fight evil in color coded suits was right up my alley.

When my heroes ended up in Japan I ended up having them meet Zen Squad from the old 4e Allies book.  I'm actually a power rangers fan so the part where they are all employees of a big company that somehow work at an orphanage & fight evil in color coded suits was right up my alley.

Finally saw Bill & Ted face the Music.
 
I wasn't up to running a game Saturday so my group decided to have a movie night instead.  I remember reading a review when it dropped that it was exactly a 3rd Bill & Ted movie.  If you disliked the older ones you would dislike this one in the same way, but if you found the old ones fun or charming, then you would feel the same way about this one.

I really agree.  It *felt* like a 3rd in the series, not just a decades later nostalgia pic.  The musical duo's increasingly desperate attempts to unite humanity via the power of Rock, combined with their surprisingly successful run at Fatherhood made for a fun time.

Finally saw Bill & Ted face the Music.
 
I wasn't up to running a game Saturday so my group decided to have a movie night instead.  I remember reading a review when it dropped that it was exactly a 3rd Bill & Ted movie.  If you disliked the older ones you would dislike this one in the same way, but if you found the old ones fun or charming, then you would feel the same way about this one.

I really agree.  It *felt* like a 3rd in the series, not just a decades later nostalgia pic.  The musical duo's increasingly desperate attempts to unite humanity via the power of Rock, combined with their surprisingly successful run at Fatherhood made for a fun time.

Watched another nostalgia flick, this time one that I don't have any nostalgia for because I didn't watch the originals: Chip 'N' Dale Rescue Rangers. I still enjoyed the bazillion cameos and references to other media properties, a la Roger Rabbit (including several to Roger Rabbit itself). The story was about what you'd expect, nothing brilliant, but it works. More importantly enough of the humor works to make it an enjoyable watch.
 

This isn't the first time they've pulled this kind of thing. The only reason Avengers: Endgame is the top grossing movie of all time is because Dr. Strange saw it 14,000,605 times.
 

Yeah, I disagree with your premise but that doesn't mean its a bad idea or that you are bad for proposing it.
 
... now lets just not talk about the Oxford comma.  Things are going so well.
 

No need to apologize. The Internet itself is the true cosmic horror.

In a long ago internet meme, one of Strongbad's emails posed the question:

"Would he use his powers for good? Or for awesome?"

The problem I have when you go *that* far is...
 
--how many 12 year olds would go hero...versus just take the powers out on a joyride?  ESPECIALLY with no one who can check them, and no role models?
--if they're the first, then why would the threat of burnout be recognized?  And at 12?  8 years away is FOREVER, even if they do know.
--even if they go hero, will they use force properly...trying to minimize collateral damage, and threats to civilians?  How often will 13 and 14 year olds seriously OVER-react?  That's not a stable age group.
--who/how/when will they get trained to use their powers at all...or do they just have excellent control from the get-go?  
 
The burnout issue only arises if that's a part of the campaign world backstory, but the others are present in any similar campaign.  They just become more acute in the "no prior art" type of setup.
 
EDIT:  another issue with the threat of burnout...step back and consider the situation from the kid who's just getting these powers.  Whose power set is in no way conducive to solving the burnout question.  What's the reaction gonna be...live fast, die young...or go the selfless route, of helping everyone else?  
 
Also, solving the problem doesn't readily feel like a natural fit for most PC groups.  Feels like this is going to come down to a deus ex machina.