I'm sure that if my life circumstances ever allowed me to play RPGs again, I would be disappointed. Although I know on some level that my high-schoolish efforts as a game-master were laughable (I basically used a bunch of random encounter charts), the experience that I remember was not at the time judged against that standard. And that's what makes it so perfect.
I've sometimes thought about designing a game-world and adventure sequence for the gamers here on CFC--as though there would be some grand meet-up of all of us. If I ever do that, it will be a way of projecting my nostalgia forward into an impossible future, rather than an irrecoverable past. Harn World was just coming out as my years with RPGs were coming to an end. I don't know if anybody remembers it. It was a campaign setting designed to be used with any rule system. It had really slick maps. But in the years since, computer paint programs have advanced to a level, where I could probably design my own Harn-style world to an equivalent level of polish.
Years ago, I once briefly (and in jest) conducted an RPG adventure here on CFC: a hunt for MRAs (back when that was a mythical beast).
Parents routinely throw away their kids' enthusiasms when they move out of the house for college or adult life. But mine didn't. I have all my old beat-up rules manuals and game-master aids. Great nostalgia.