The Iron Age is usually considered to be the time period in which iron was in wide use but before there was a strong historical record. 420 BC in Greece isn't early Iron Age, it's after the end of the Iron Age.
It's worth keeping an eye on Half-Price Books as well. I picked up nine of the old RQ2 and RQ3 box sets there last year for between a quarter and a half of what Noble Knight was asking for them.
Will this ever be available in PoD like what's planned for the Rough Guide? I've really enjoyed reading Andrew's blog in the past and I'd love to get a print copy.
I have exactly the opposite opinion. The fact that Runequest NPCs and monsters have those massive stat blocks, most of which will never be used, is a big turnoff. I prefer systems where NPCs have only the numbers that are absolutely required for when they're interacting with players. Many systems that I enjoy don't use stats for NPCs at all.
Greg went to school in Beloit, WI which is only a hop, skip, and a jump from Lake Geneva. It makes sense that he'd have friends still in the area even after he had graduated and moved to California.
I've never cared for critical hits in any system for this reason. There's also the fact that player characters face many more attack rolls over their lifespans than monsters and NPCs and are thus much more likely to eat a debilitating or instantly fatal crit at some point.
It means that the rainy days in Fire Season are more likely to be brief storms which dump a lot of rain, while the Sea Season days are more like overcast days with a lot of drizzle. More rain falls overall during Early Sea Season (15 cm) than in either Early or Late Fire Season (8 cm and 5 cm, respectively).
From my perspective, if there aren't meaningful consequences for both success and failure, nobody should be rolling any dice. If your apply this standard, all rolls should count for checks.
This is a bit of a quibble, but you don't actually have to fail any tests to advance. At higher skill levels (and all stat levels), you do have to attempt tests that aren't possible to succeed without metacurrency, though.