And I would say it is needlessly complicated, seeing as how 3E managed to acomplish the same things (i.e. hit rolls, AC, saving throws) with a more straight forward and intuitive system.
The difference between 2E and 3E is the difference between renovating a hundred year old house and building a new, modern house with a nod to a classic architectural theme. 3E is different because it is a complete rewrite, while 2E is an evolution of a pre-existing system that more or less maintains compatibility with an 1E, which is itself the evolution of OD&D, which is in turn an evolution of Chainmail and a wargaming tradition. Armor class was a perfectly reasonable mechanic when it was first conceived, and the way it evolved as D&D evolved is entirely reasonable.
3E made a clean break with earlier versions of D&D, maintaining some of the stylistic cues and, maybe, some of the overall character, but it is a different game. As a completely new game, it was able to implement a number of mechanics in a more consistent and arguably intuitive manner, though the difference between 2E and 3E hit roll systems is often greatly exaggerated.
Point being: 3E was only able to accomplish the same thing because it was working with a simpler problem: build a new self-contained system rather than evolve an existing system in a way that is both familiar to players or and compatible with materials from the existing game.
Yeah, when I said "needlessly complicated", I didn't mean to imply that I thought the creators set out to make it overly complicated or just did a half-assed job or anything. I just meant that it was more complicated than is absolutely necessary to implement the features that it did.
I remember playing a D&D-based game on the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis to you Americans), called 'Warriors of the Eternal Sun'. I have no idea what ruleset it was based on, if any, but it had completely wonky balance issues (like leaving the first/only city and running into a Hill Giant as your first enemy). About 3/4 of the way through the game you get barred from entering the main city, so I couldn't get anyone resurrected. Eventually, it was just my lone Cleric wandering through ancient caverns, his friends dead, red dragons looming in every corridor. I think I must have repeatedly spammed Sanctuary or some equivalent spell. Eventually I reached the end of the caverns and discovered some ancient civilisation, which was apparently the point of the game, and it ended there.
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I have no idea why all that just came back to me.