I started playing D&D in high school, from the blue book. It was all about hack-and-slash and crawling through dungeons looking for loot. We didn't even ask about dungeon economics and monster ecology.

My most recent campaign (chronicled in ralph_dnd) was about storytelling, character arc, and, yeah, beating up monsters and taking their stuff -- but in a grander, epic context.

There were lots of fun times in between, but I enjoyed this last campaign best.