Nerd Nirvana pt. 2: Dungeons & Dragons as a parenting tool

OK, so the unitiated need to stop reading right now. In the words of Jigga, it's about to get real ugly in here. Anyway, that Margaret Weis note got me to thinking. I recently ordered copies of the old first edition Player's Handbook, the Manual of the Planes and the Deities and Demigods book. I need them for a project I'm working on, but I also wanted them as sort of archives of another time, and as a reminder to myself not to let the daily grind of adulthood kill what the best thing I had going as a child and probably have going as an adult--imagination and curiosity.

But more to the point, after the order, I got to thinking--What would it be like to try D&D today as a full-grown adult? Me and my buddy Ed Park (who does a mean version of She and Him's "Sentimental Heart") were talking about this awhile back, and I think the conclusion we reached was that it almost certainly wouldn't have the same pop. That said, I'm seriously considering teaching my 8-year old son to play (I was seven going on eight when I started) because I don't want his idea of games and gaming to be limited to things that don't require abstraction. There is something to said for having to imagine what that Sword of Vorpral Wounding looks like, or how it would feel to face a White Dragon. My question for the Nerds among us is, Have any of you guys tried D&D as adult? Did you just put away the polyhedral dice and say forget it? Do you ever get the hankering to go rooting through the Caves of Chaos?