I totally agree, the at-will powers were part of what I was getting at, particularly how it always lets casters have a spell and always lets physical attackers have a special move. I always imagined it must have been terrifying for our DM to keep track of all of our powers rather than just having basic attacks. For the short time I DM'ed, we were putting our rolls through a PC client on hand, so I just took everybody at their word at what they were rolling.

So I guess you used skill/ability checks and your wits in combat situations? Because 4E still supported all that stuff for skill challenges and such, although the D&D Encounters I played didn't have a lot of it (understandably since people are there to roll some dice, kill some monsters, and grab some loot).

If you wanna get an EoFF game together MapTools is a great way to do it.