It's a weird conclusion and doesn't entirely hold up, but it seems more often than not the second edition of a game is where the sweet spot is for most games. Especially nowadays. A few examples:
Dragon Warriors: The original books were fucking paperbacks. Some like them, these are nostalgic twits. The second printing my Magnum Opus was virtually perfect. Serpent King came in and were smart enough not to fuck with it, just make it available again. Their own offering, the Player's Guide, is a hot mess. Luckily you can basically ignore it's existence. $12 for the Dragon Warriors Corebook on Drivethru is a fucking steal to end all steals. It's an incredibly complete game. The bestiary is an amazing but ultimately unnecessary addition.
Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Few people own the original deluxe box, the game was much closer to a shitty B/X clone than the form it currently is, which came along due to it's second edition, second box, the grindhouse set. The only bad part was the Referee book has never been as concise or good as that first Deluxe box, and it's impossible to find now.
Mutants & Masterminds: 1st edition was a hot mess and trash version of d20 supers. 2nd edition made it into a perfect expression, had a unified vision and clear alternate supers world, and perfect support line with very few duds. 3rd edition is a woke nightmare, but a sensible woke nightmare as it's emulating current comics which are a woke nightmare. Hopefully it will die soon and then it'll merely be a curiosity on my shelf.
Over the Edge: 2nd edition was obviously a refinement of what came in 1E. The reprinted 20th anniversary edition that came out... like 8 years ago was great, with a few extra options tucked in the foreword BUT THE FUCKING MAIN TEXT UNCHANGED. OTE3E is a Forgie nightmare, which is a lot like a woke nightmare, basically rewrote an entire game for the sake of rewriting an entire game, discarding the brilliance behind the 2nd edition.
Swords & Wizardry: Really few differences between the editions, but 2nd edition of Complete (Erol Otus blue devil cover) has the best cover and considering what they did to the layout in the third printing and how they made a goofy box set as the fourth, they should keep/have kept it forever that Otus cover. There is nowhere to go but down from an iconic artist drawing an iconic cover. The only way to do better would have been to gotten Dave Trampier (who's regrettably passed) Larry Elmore, or Jeff Easley. That's your options, folks. Or have Otus do another badass cover.
Talislanta: While I personally love 4E the most, there is something to be said of the flavor and charm of 2E Talislanta was never fully duplicated.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: 1st edition is a hot mess, still semi-attached to the minis game. 2nd edition is like a truer expression of ideas into mechanics, with very little fat on the bones. 3rd edition became an entirely different game nobody likes or talks about in polite company, and 4th edition is a woke nightmare attempting to reanimate the corpse of 2E and knowing none of the logic behind it's systems.
Random Exceptions:
Castles & Crusades took 7 fucking editions/printings to get to what I would consider "2nd edition" status (well, as close as they were gonna get), then fucked it up with their 8th printing and putting PCs of up to 24th level in the PHB.
D&D's second edition was Holmes (the red-headed stepkid of all D&D editions). But if we went with D&D's second edition by Gygax (that being AD&D1E), yeah it's still a mess. If we went by what a 5th edition player thinks the second edition was (AD&D2E, numerically the sixth edition), yeah it's still a hot mess, albiet less hot and less messy then AD&D1E. D&D's best edition was arguably it's 4th... Moldvay/Cook/Marsh B/X.
Hero's Journey: This game hit it out of the park in the first edition, it's second edition is essentially a rebuttal of this entire post, as it was overthought and overanalyzed, coming to solutions that weren't necessary like renaming stats nonsensically or adding an ugly fake yellow brown background to make it look "older", instead of using cream paper stock like a smart person designing a game to get the same effect without causing headache inducing formatting.
L5R: Everything after 1E L5R was rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. For 5 editions and counting now.
EDIT: Basic Fantasy 4th edition is it's best edition. Likely to be it's last edition. And honestly, that's always the best case scenario.
