Hi -- was active for a while on the pre-Gleemax Wizards boards, still poke in occasionally at the GitP boards when I'm checking the OotS webcomic.
I learned D&D as a kid from the Basic/Expert box sets, first got into a real campaign in high school playing 2e AD&D. Dabbled across various RPG systems in college, but still had some AD&D there, then went pretty much exclusively 3e D&D. Played in several campaigns, then ran a long campaign that climbed all the way from 1st level in 3e to 17th level in 3.5e, including original material (from dumping PCs into the Plane of Shadow at 2nd level to a full-fledged extraplanar invasion by an advanced Roman-style legionary army including PC-leveled soldiers and officers) and heavily adapted material (from the freebie 3e The Burning Plague to manually updating the Ravenloft Grand Conjunction series).
Been away from playing for a few years now, though I'm thinking of diving back in sometime soon, though I'm still only barely conversant in 4e -- been developing some ideas for running another campaign, which would most certainly be 3.5e.
I tend to post from my experience, the bulk of which is from the 3rd-9th levels or so. 20-level builds are interesting mental exercises to me but out of my experience -- my long-running campaign was the only significant experience I've had with any characters above 12th level.
Don't get me started on the tier system, no-SR "nonmagical magic" Conjurations, "roleplaying vs rollplaying", not that these aren't topics that anyone here hasn't probably already seen beaten to death and beyond.