How common was it for players to actually explore and discover all aspects of these items? Reading these over almost rewrites my sense of magic in the AD&D campaign - you look at the DMG, see all those lists of 'standard' items, and you almost can't help but feel magic is assembly line stuff.
How common were these types of things in your campaign? Did you ever encounter game balance problems? Also, many of the items seem to have random, unexpected or layered abilities. I was startled, though, at the power of many of them - most of these seem more like artifacts than magic items. They all display Rob's usual fertile imagination and really bring home the uniqueness of the original campaign(s). (Endymion): D&A is the first I've gone through (ERKAT and Stalk soon to follow) and I had some questions and comments. This became today's article due to Endymion's fine questions and examinations posted at our forums.
