There is a current thread running at the Steve Jackson Games (SJG) forums about switching from D&D to GURPS.

This particular person is not satisfied that D&D4 (or his old D&D) will handle the style of campaign he is interested in running.

Anyway, I thought I would share the link to the thread for anyone that has at least a passing interest in GURPS.

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humboldtscott wrote on Nov 30^th, 2008 at 3:40pm:

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These are GURPS 3E, but can be converted fairly easily to 4E

And just to make you go wow that would be cool, and whoa I never thought of running a game like that...etc
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The thing I have learned from the past few GURPS games the group has tried.  Decide what skills, advantages, disadvantages, perks, and quirks will be allowed and write them down for the players.  Instead of handing the players the books and say have at it, had them the book AND the list of allowable skills and traits, etc.  I can see that this will help keep the characters (and players) focused with traits that will be acceptable to the campaign.

I have not done this yet, but from the past few games I have done, this will be put into play the next time I run a GURPS game.  I do, however, have have a 30 page PDF set up for DragonLance setting in GURPS that uses this concept.

Another thing to do is to get with your players individually and have them go over their character concept with them and make sure it makes sense, then disallow any skills, adv, disadv, perks, and quirks that would not fall into that concept.

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Yep, and most are unwilling to even give a thought to trying something else.  I have to admit, I was one of these people several years ago.  'D&D was the shiznit and I am not gonna try your great new so and so system.'  This alone has lost me many opportunity's to play quite a few games I would really enjoy playing now.  

The thing I have learned from the past few GURPS games the group has tried.  Decide what skills, advantages, disadvantages, perks, and quirks will be allowed and write them down for the players.
Good idea...

Really its up to the GM to make sure the characters are balanced and useful.
Great, when you've got years of experience with the system. That's the problem. The book gives no guidelines to the new GM (or Player) for how to accomplish that. Again, the question, what would be an appropriate percentage for typical allocation between stats/skills/advantages? I realize that's going to depend on the setting - more points would be needed for advantages in a world with superpowers - but in general? Is it better to put points into stats, or skills? It seems like I'd have to run a lot of math to make that determination for each character, but some guidelines would be helpful. New players, myself included, seem to get lost. It's certainly a disadvantage of a points system. A stats/classes/skills type game (DnD) allows you to make one set of choices at a time, without having to fully consider how it will impact your other choices.

And just to make you go wow that would be cool, and whoa I never thought of running a game like that...etc
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Yeah, I know how much GURPS can do. Years ago, a long rambling conversation with a gamer friend began with a discussion of P.K. Dick's "Man in the High Castle." We ended up with imagining what Vietnam would have been like in an alternate world where the Germans never declared war on the U.S. following Pearl Harbor, so the Nazi's went on to conquer Britain and Russia, while the U.S. defeated Japan. We posited that the Vichy government would not have handed it over to the Japanese in the last days of the war, so the US never would have taken control. Instead, the Germans would have filled in for the Americans, trying to succeed where the French had failed. The US would have a role like China, supplying the Vietnamese Nationalists led by Ho Chi Minh. Now, what system could possibly accommodate players taking the role of US special forces aiding the VC against the Nazi's in this alternate universe? Obviously, only GURPS. Or fudge, but I don't like the +/- dice concept.

-P.S. I use italics because I'm too lazy to figure out the quote feature.