I admit that I really wanted to like Traveller in the 1980s.  I had heard so much about it from my older friends who played it...all the awesome stories about being space smugglers kicking around from star to star.

Then someone verbally explained the 3I to me, and my interest just went "pfft."  At the cynical age of about 15, circa '85, I had trouble believing in not one, but three "human" cultures dominating space, the Vargr as uplifted dogs, and the idea that a Lassiaz Faire imperium would last for how long?

If someone had explained that we could've played a campaign modeled off of Space Viking during the Long Night of the Ramshackle Empire...now, that, I'd've loved.