Weapons of the Gods

Someone offered me one of the nicest things one gamer can offer a game master: a seat at his table as a player in one of his favorite games. In this case, I had inspired someone with my WotG oneshot who has since purchased the books and begun to run the game, much to the acclaim of several players. He wanted some help with the Secret Arts, so I whipped up my own character (rather similar to Grey Lotus, actually, except less medical skill and more White Crane. Mmmm. White Crane)

I've tried not to touch WotG since I finished our last campaign, fearing that I would "burn out" on it like I burned out on Exalted or 7th Sea, but after re-opening that part of my life and feeling the utter exhiliration of the game again, I wonder. Did I burn out on Exalted and 7th Sea because I played them "too much," or because they sucked. Forgive me if you loved those particular games, but their systems certainly could have been better. Walter, for example, wanted very much to love 7th Sea even while the reputation system was graphically violating his character concept and encouraging all the players to waste their points in useless knacks (Fortunately, everyone wasted their points the same way, so we didn't see discrepencies. We should probably thank our stars that Roomie wasn't playing, or he'd have dissected the system and put everyone's characters to shame). Was I tired of Exalted because of running it so much, or because I got sick of sifting through 50 charms whenever I wanted to make a powerful NPC and hassling through endless, pointless fights with eternal perfects, insurmountable defenses and absurd armor that resulted in miniscule chances of anyone involved taking even a single HL of damage?

I mean, I'm not tired of GURPS yet, or World of Darkness (the new one, which is actually pretty good), despite years of playing them. Maybe the problem isn't that I get sick of a game, but that I get sick of doing all the mechanical heavy lifting and pretending a game is good when it isn't.