Advanced OD&D: A Thought Experiment

As much as I love 5th Edition (and more to the point, as much as my players love it), I also sometimes yearn for the simplicity of pre-Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, with the lower power levels, level-limits driving a human-centric world, and the extensive use of d6s. (Don't have enough minis for the orc? Just roll a bunch of d6s to find out their hit points and then place them on the battle-mat.)

Having bought pdf copies of the original "little brown books," the Basic/Expert set, and the AD&D 1st edition Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide, as well as finding scans of Strategic Review and really early issues of The Dragon magazine, I'm struck by two trends: First, how quickly D&D abandoned its Chainmail roots (which seriously nerfed fighters), and second, how quickly the power level of the game ramped up.

As early as the Greyhawk supplement, we have character levels expanding from an assumed maximum of 10-13 to level 20 and beyond, spell levels expanding from a maximum of 5th and 6th level to 7th and 9th, rapidly growing hit dice, and sub-classes that--at least in the case of fighters--vastly outperformed the original class. Which in turn caused the original fighter class to need ramping up, which meant the monsters needed ramping up, and so forth.

So here's the question: What might an AD&D that had very closely cleaved to both the original game--and that as more strictly interpreted through the Chainmail rules--have looked like?

This will be an infrequent feature, updated whenever the whimsy overtakes me, but I should have a first post out shortly.