design sifu, not sure what you mean by hourly bonus. I however try to encourage my players to work as a group, hence my experience awards for moving the story along.

As for 3rd ed. I like it. It isn't AD&D by any means and that is part of the thing I like. You still have all the basics, hit points, D20 etc.. they have just managed to ****genize the system some, make it more streamlined and intuitive. You no longer have rolls that you need ot get high and rolls you need to get low, or D20 and percentage dice rolls. Everything minus damage is pretty much rolled on the D20 now.
On top of that they have really opened up character creation so that you have an extreme amount of flexibility. Detailed rules on playing monster characters, prestige classes and feats really come together in my opinion to make for some really interesting character creation. On top of all that it makes for some great bad guys!
All in all I have been extremely satisfied and I think most of those out there who say they prefer AD&D, probably don't like change
It's comprehensive. covers just about anything you or your players think up, and with the D20 system being wide open for anyone to develope, the amount of source material is insane!