Well, Roy. As a full-time game designer and game reviewer, here's my take on best RPGs.
AD&D: there's nothing really all that wrong with AD&D. But after a point, it starts to seem hollow and unrealistic to some players. At least, that's what happened to me, and presumably you.
HARNMASTER: the system is reasonably realistic and fun to play. I use the Harn maps often, but I do NOT use any part of their world background. Though I like the guys at Columbia Games, I think that their fantasy world of Harn is boring. I don't know anyone who's tried Harnmaster in Glorantha, so I have no idea how easily it would convert.
WARHAMMER (the RPG): pretty fun actually, if rather eccentric and straitjacketed. The fact that you can play a rat-catcher pretty much captivated me. The rules may not be all that realistic, but you can get in fast bloody melees right away. Soon you'll be buying lots of Citadel miniatures, and that's what this game is all about.
RUNEQUEST: my personal favorite, and it was my favorite before I became one of the authors, so there. It's realistic and rather elegant (RQ III damaged some of that elegance, but it's still visible). It's modular, too, which many players seem not to recognize -- you can leave off the hit location table, or the parry rules, etc. and still have a perfectly good game left. It relies on systems instead of tables for play and I like that a _lot_! It's always harder for me to find the right table than to remember a system.
The only real disadvantages to RQ are (1) hardly anyone plays it, so it's likely to be unfamiliar to all your other players and (2) the best world for it is Glorantha which is _very_ peculiar and as unlike D&D as you can imagine (but fun!) and (3) it's rather complicated, compared to AD&D. There are a lot more combat options, and you need to roll up the monsters individually until you get skilled at making them up in a hurry. But it's cool to NOT be able to describe your PC as a "4th level fighter" or "6th level insurance salesman" and thus sum up all relevant information. Also cool is that religion plays a major role in most campaigns.
HERO SYSTEM: combat is really slow. Slower than RQ, which is the main complaint most people have about it. The other big disadvantages are that it takes _forever_ to create NPCs (even harder than RQ) and not only that but when you glance over someone's character sheet, it's hard as heck to actually figure out what the guy is _capable_ of, and you can get some nasty surprises once the game starts.
On the other hand, the rules hold together well, your characters are well-rounded and neat, and a number of people know it.
TORG: I don't like it. Some people do. I find it rather like eating a jalapeno pepper that's gone bad -- it has spice, but an unpleasant aftertaste. It's not suitable for anything but its own strange pulp universe which seemed exciting at first, but failed to grow on me.
GURPS: rather like a poor man's Hero System. Tons of supplements to play in any universe you ever dreamed of, from the Horseclans to the Scarlet Pimpernel. I'm prejudiced against it because the game it evolved from -- The Fantasy Trip -- was fast, elegant, and fun, and GURPS, to me, slower, less elegant, and maybe as fun. Hard to say because of my bias.
EMPIRE OF THE PETAL THRONE: the game system is pitiful -- wordy, full of rules holes, and mind-numbingly complex (the character sheet is eight pages long). But the world is really neat. The only world (IMO) to compare with Glorantha.
PENDRAGON: RuneQuest lite. It's perfect for Arthurian Britain, and Dave Dunham has demonstrated that it can be applied to very different situations, but to do this you have to a lot of work.
There's my two bits, for what it's worth. There's always your own homebrew systems, or if you can find Swordbearer, The Fantasy Trip, or one of those other older games, you might like 'em a lot.
Sandy Petersen.
I can't think of any other
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