Descending Deeper into Descent

Descent is one of those games. I don't know why, but I just like it. It is far from perfect - it is terribly long, it can be unbalanced, it can be fiddly, and there seem to be a dozen little rules that you forget. Despite that, I really like the theme and the game itself. I've even painted about half the monsters and maybe a third of the heroes in my set. Recently, Fantasy Flight Games announced they were going to release Descent 2nd edition in 2012. This could be good or bad. On the one hand, it sounds like it should be a much more streamlined and faster playing game. On the other hand, they are not going to be re-printing any of the original expansions! Well, I'm not sure that I care for that. I was going to wait until the new edition came out to check it out before trying to figure out whether to stick with the older version or to jump ship for the newer one. One recent math trade has changed my mind.
In one very quick trade, I traded for a pair of Hirst molds for building Descent tiles. A friend of mine has a set of these tiles and they are fantastic to play with -  they really do add to the game experience. Unpainted and un-assembled sets of the pieces can be purchased on Ebay for about $100, but now I can make my own for quite a bit less than that. I figure if I'm going to dive into this little project, I might as well start looking into the expansions. Unfortunately, it turns out that the prices have really gone up on the expansions. Especially Road to Legend. Road to Legend adds the ability to play Descent as a campaign, thus allowing for hero development and it breaks the game into small scenarios that can be played in under a couple hours rather than five or six. I started putting out offers and I'm happy to report that I was able to get The Well of Darkness in a trade for Cyclades. I'm working on another trade to move my A Game of Thrones LCG stuff for Road to Legend. The other two base expansions I was able to find on Ebay and an online store for good prices (NIS). I may even eventually try to track down the last expansion - The Sea of Blood, but this one is an expansion for Road to Legend, so there isn't a need to track this one down until I can secure RtL. Now, I realize I may never get all of the expansions played, but I don't care. Better to have a game I like and never play than to have a game or two I don't like and never will play.