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One thing to keep in mind is that while the internet has increased the homogeneity of D&D play somewhat there is still some really significant variance from one playgroup to the next, regardless of edition / system. For all the talk of playing by RAW pretty much every game has it's own house-rules, one way or another. IME, what 3e and 4e have done (in small part) is to push the idea that the players should be at least partially in charge of what is and is not part of the game / which direction you go in, system-wise. Ideally that's a great thing, unfortunately some players end up nbot giving good thought to the implications of what they want. A big part of this, I think, is that a lot of players don't really want the responsibility of making such decisions, but they don't want to pass control back to the DM either. As a result they end up picking stuff up online / from magazines / from discussions with other players / etc. that may have worked great for the group that originally came up with it, but may or may not work out in your game.

One of my personal pet peeves is players who see something they're sure is cool in a supplement (especially problematic in 3e during the ''d20 boom'' when there might be a dozen or so third-party products of varying styles / types released in a given month...) but they can't actually express or just flat-out do not know how it's cool... Which ends up with me trying to take choices the player has made (that I may completely disagree with) and guess how to make them cool for that player.

This is one of the big reasons I like OGL stuff... Most of the people I play with are going to groan and roll their eyes if I whip out Lamentations or whatever, but they'll play and they'll expect me to tell them what the game is about / how it plays. I end up with more players dropping out because it doesn't do what they want it to, but we are at least on the same page.

Me! I dunno why, but I've just really been digging the OSR space games, and this or Hulks & Horors (which failed to fund on Indiegogo) are the two that look most up my alley.

I've always assumed that anything you can easily hold in one hand should count as a small item. How big is a potion vial? Frex: I can hold a 20oz soda in one hand, but while I can hold up a 2-litre with one hand it's definitely not the same thing. So anything heavy enough that holding it up would be difficult or large enough that it's not obviously in-hand I would think should count for encumbrance. Either LotFP box set should count as a very small item, while more than one 1e book (or any GURPS main rulebook) would be a regular item.

re: Backpacks, I'd just say that the first one (or a slung sack, etc.) is free if you're wearing / using it as intended, but any further baggage (even empty) counts as an item.

I really have to say that LotFP has the best encumbrance system, practically slapped myself when I first saw it... Why did no-one else ever implement this?

I'd bet he's somebody's ride.