I think the biggest problem, and the one that gets the most
"press", was the strength levels section. I see now that it
was indeed a big mistake in hanging specific numbers on
each character. What they listed fit with how creators had
portrayed the characters up till that point as far as where
each character fit on the scale, but going beyond a general
ranking wasn't the way to go.

Loved all the pretty pictures of both OHOTMU and WHO'S WHO... all that miniscule text held my attention for about 2 minutes.

I really enjoyed OHOTMU for the drawings of the characters and it also gave me insight into some of the more obscure characters that I had never heard of before.  The pictures were way more entertaining for me than what was written about them, especially when I picked them up a child.  It showed me a lot of cool ideas for costumes on comic books that I was drawing too.....oh and the covers were done by JB!

I don't like the newer editions of OHOTMU at all.  Whatever magic they used to have is gone in the latest versions.  Plus the character models are terrible vs. the 80s versions. 

I preferred OHOTMU myself, but you caan put me down as another fan of the art in Who's Who (Zoot Sputnik by Fred Hembeck?  Woo-hoo!).

••

Sadly, that was not what OHOTMU was originally intended to be.

As conceived, it was meant to be a quick reference guide, listing significant appearances (to make them easier to find, for research) and a synopsis of powers. Alas, very quickly it turned into a catalog of QUANTIFICATION, largely at Shooter's insistence (tho Mark Gruenwald was more than happy to go along!).

Shooter had grown increasingly displeased with the sometimes loosey-goosey approach to handling powers and limitations. Mostly it was just a few instances in which sloppy writing (especially from writer/editors) would confuse the issue, but Shooter liked grand, sweeping rules that covered EVERYBODY. So he pushed for precise defining AND limiting of the powers as described in OHOTMU. (WHO'S WHO, coming later, followed OHOTMU's pattern.)

Two things went very sour right away. First, Shooter used OHOTMU so slip in "stealth rewrites" of characters' origins, as when the first edition told us that Spider-Man's wall-climbing came from a "molecular interface", not from abilities he'd picked up from that spider bite. (Misinformed, Shooter thought spiders "stuck" to walls, with adhesive, and declared that "icky".) Second, when Mark could not find a previously published description of how powers worked, he made one up. Sometimes he also did that if he simply didn't LIKE the previous description. (Which is how Cyclops came to be "channeling" energy from a parallel dimension, rather than simply absorbing it from the Sun as had been stated in the X-Men's own book years earlier.)

As with so many things in comics -- a good idea that went bad very fast. (Largely due to it being an early warning sign of the Asylum being run by the inmates!)

One thing I like about about the more recent editions of OHOTMU is that they include a lot more about the character's history, and spend a lot less time trying to explain where Iron Man found that hidden mallet head in Avengers #2.

I loved the original edition of the OHOTMU when it came out, but I can certainly see where the detractors think that Marvel would have been better served if they'd used some self-restraint in some areas.