You are correct. My bad. (Insert embarrassed face here.)

Still, the main points are the same. IIRC, halflings weren't noticeably modified between v3.0 and 3.5 (other than the unused racial variants) and I don't believe the size of any of the weapons found in the game were tweaked either. Some of the feats might've been modified between editions, but within the game feats were auto-selected based on class anyway, rather than being player's choice.

Some changes were weird.

In 3.0, halfling had to use light weapons, while in 3.5 they used undersized versions of human weapons. Meaning that in 3.0, your halfling fought with a shortsword doing 1D6 damage, and in 3.5 he fought with a halfling longsword dealing 1D6 damage. Same with longsword/2 Handed halfling sword, or dagger/halfling shortsword... ^^

One of my favorite things is to settle on distant islands far from any civ and make due with resources that the land provides. Now with the 64 bit versions, this is made easier with a wider area of land one can declare their fortress to be.

To be honest, I have been trying to get away from this mindset.

For example, in TES: Arena, I am occasionally using spell-casting items. I note that weapons of Lifesteal are pretty good, as they do 40 damage, heal you 40 points, and have a lot of charges. Also, since they're weapons, they appear above everything except armor (only relevant for plate armor users) and shields.

In Final Fantasy 5, I like to use the !Mix ability learned by the Chemist job, and I have also been throwing scrolls for cheap elemental damage to all enemies. (I do have a few self-imposed restrictions for that game, as mentioned above, but I do allow myself the use of items.

Also, playing SaGa 1 or 2 with humans forces you to use limited-use items, as there is no other option (*every* obtainable item except Xcalibur and the Aegis/Masamune MAGI has limited uses in SaGa 2, and you don't get the infinite use items until very late in the game).

On the other hand, there are some games where, late game, I manage to avoid using any resources at all. In Phantasy Star 3, it is possible to heal solely with infinite use items (the fact that there's an item (the Force Vest) with unlimited casts of the revive spell helps, as does the Royal Vest to reliably kill the user to heal the rest of the party). In Lennus 2, you can use the Revive spell (at high skill, revives with 9999 HP) to heal, and use the Sexy Dress (kills caster to restore 75% of everyone else's HP) to force a character to be dead.

Another thing I try to do is use abilities that many players tend to ignore. For example, in my current TES: Arena playthrough, I am playing a bit with Transfer Health spells. They're sub-optimal due to their lack of scaling with your level, but they still seem to be effective enough to be useful. (If I were a Healer, they would be a bit more viable, but I'm a Nightblade at the moment.)

Quite frankly, at the end of a long RPG, I don't even remember that I have those items and potions I've been hoarding since the first dungeon. And then I rant because the game is too hard ^^

This, exactly. I played this way in Deus Ex and I'm trying it in Thief. In the latter, however, you're basically supposed to do it that way, since combat isn't a very effective choice. At least, this is how I see it.
I did this too in Deus Ex.

Have you ever done the FFV Fiesta?

No, because I prefer to use a variety of jobs on any given playthrough rather than confine myself to a limited selection.

If I ever do a major challenge for FF5, it will probably be something like a low level game (in which I beat the game at extremely low levels; I think I would probably go 2/2/2/3 (as opposed to 2/1/1/4) if I do that particular challenge); I prefer to have to use a diverse array of abilities rather than limit myself to a subset of them.