I totally missed both the comment on your video, and your comment on this thread. I blame society.
I hope Joel makes this happen, because the magazine system is the one remaining system that I think should be redone.
I started on A16, and didn't have an issue with LBD. But it could easily be exploited, so I understand why TFP wanted to do something different.
I also didn't have
much of an issue with the system that came after LBD, where crafting was tied to a particular perk. But as a result, it "forced" players to buy the crafting-related perks, since they were the most valuable. (It didn't actually "force" anyone, but that's often what it
felt like it was
trying to do.) For example, I always put points into Miner 69'er solely because it gave me the ability to craft better tools; otherwise I would have put points into Mother Lode instead, because I prefer getting more resources over breaking blocks faster.
The magazine system didn't solve that issue. The game still favors crafting-related perks, but it's now indirect; players get the perks that boost their odds of getting specific crafting magazines, instead of boosting crafting skills directly.
And it introduced new problems. It now favors looting above everything else (so solo players who prefer to do things other than looting are out of luck). It also favors POIs that players think have the magazines they want (e.g. Crack-A-Book, the gas stations for vehicle magazines), so it "forces" players to adopt a specific exploration style as well.
It's also a bit inconsistent.
Most of the crafting is gated by crafting magazines, but a few items can only be crafted once you find their schematics, and a few can only be crafted by completing book series. These are all just
different kinds of reading materials, which you attain the same way: by looting places that have reading materials. They encourage exactly the same in-game behavior, so what's the point of making different systems?
None of this is to say that the magazine system is a
bad system. It's not. But neither of the previous systems were any worse IMHO, so we didn't really gain anything from it.
The proposed combination of magazines (learning by looting) and skill-based crafting (LBD) is probably the right call. It seems to be what most modders are trying to do anyway, so we know there's a general demand for it.
At the very least, I am pretty sure
I will enjoy it more than the magazine system we have now.