my non-d&d preferences are Traveller, One Ring 2e, Conan, and Faster Than Light: Nomad. Patiently waiting for Broken Empires to ship.

For d&d-like's, I play Shadowdark and OSE.

All in all it's difficult to drag many of my friends away from their 5e

E.g. I managed to find some 5e players who were somewhat interested in something sci fi, but once I explained it would be grounded (aka no space wizards) they nope'd out immediately.

1) people will do anything rather than learn a non-5e system. And 2) Neon Odyssey is a genre that will let players be absolutely anything no matter how ridiculous. I've noticed when starting new campaigns that typical 5e players veto any settings or genres that would limit class/species choices.

Don't do it! We both watched the same animated explanation of how Draw Steel manipulates players into engaging with mechanical feedback loops!

are there any options if we missed the campaign window and still want to secure a hardcover?

Oof

What does this friend say when they are confronted with this information?

Better yet, when's the last time your party was in a large cave room, and you were being attacked by enemies shooting bows from a stone bridge above? I think more dungeons could use 3-dimensional designs like this. Zelda did it for decades, yet I don't see it too much at the table. 2/x

tangentially related, mad props for going the extra mile for hardcover - there are supplements I've flat-out said no to on the grounds that they didn't offer a hardcover option.

I feel the answers to most player and/or player character problems aren't going to be found on a character sheet. New shiny character builds rarely succeed in addressing whatever rut or issue a player or player group had. But I get that making books only for GMs doesn't sell as well

Ad&d and older was far more procedural and did not focus on earning/accumulating special class-specific actions, and definitely was NOT a "so what's your character build?" system.

If anything I'd say dnd 2014's greatest feat is in that it's designed to feel like a video game to appeal to younger folks, but absolutely gets away with it because of how they effectively tricked us into thinking it's any less of a video game-esque design than 4e is.

Optimization or no, the whole system still heavily resonates with vg design. The closest parallel is fighting games like street fighter, where folks pick their main based on their variety of normals and specials they have. PF and modern dnd were both built to appeal to this way of thinking.