No more highlighted stats?

I just finished reading the newest version of the Dungeon World rules.  I'm loving everything I read, with one exception.  I really liked the highlighted stat mechanic from Apocalypse World and from the earlier versions of DW. 

I was wondering if Sage or Adam could comment on the idea/thought process behind removing that mechanic in the newest version.  I am considering house ruling it back in, but I'm wary of making any changes to the rules without a full understanding.

I'm sure Adam or Sage will weigh in shortly but I wanted to give you a summery of the reasons they have shared in various posts around here and elsewhere.

In AW highlighted stats worked because the stats were fictional representations of your character. Not so in DW, where they follow the D&D design and are physical representations. Highlighting led to people doing strange things in the fiction just to try and gain XP. Another benifit to the new system is that is levels out XP gain for all players for the most part. Most players should level up at the end of the second session so long as they pay attention to their bonds. It is slower for some and much faster for others.

I do see the benefit to helping level out the XP gain among all the players. 

But, by doing strange things in the fiction do you mean like a Fighter doing parley because CHA is highlighted?  And a Wizard doing hack and slash because STR is highlighted?  Cause if that is what you mean than I don't think that is weird, I think that is fun and interesting.  One of the cool things to do IMO with highlighted stats was to use them to force players to break out of stereotypes and ruts.

Our thinking here was mostly that highlighted stats were too swingy. As in: if a fighter gets his strength highlighted he's going to rake in the HP, if he gets his charisma highlighted it's going to be a stretch at best to keep up with others. This is a side effect of having more stats and having a slightly different model for using them.

It also didn't really mean as much as in AW. In AW you're saying "I want to see you be Cool" or "be Hard" or whatever. In DW you're not saying "I want to see you be strong" so much as you're saying "I want to see you use physical muscle" which isn't as interesting a thing.

The BBC XP system (http://anarchangel23.livejournal.com/437462.html) fixes some of those problems, if you really like highlighting that's your way to go. We think that our current solution conveys what's cool about the game better, so highlighting is most likely gone for good.

Thanks for pointing me at that.  I think the game works perfectly fine the way you have it, without highlighting stats, don't get me wrong.  Just a personal taste thing.  Thanks for the insight, i'll be trying both ways as I continue running DW and see which one works best for my group.

As a player, I like to just respond to my situation, without looking at my sheet and trying to do it in certain ways to get EXP (which I'll do, because I have a min/max OCD). Some would say this is a problem with the player, but I'd just rather not trip those wires :P