What is the best D&D-like system that has decent combat and isn't obfuscating...

Yeah, it's a problem that 3.5 had that 4e likewise had. Being designed around (in 3.5's case, as much as you can say it was designed around anything) X number of setpiece encounters per day was stifling. I've heard it said that 4e was built to improve upon how 3.5 was played, but I feel all it accomplished was highlight just how ridiculous that style of play was.

>spelling being reined in
U wot m8?

Pretty much. The adventure board games are great because of that actually.

Out of curiosity, has anybody tried running a fantasy game using FATE before?

I've done it in the Eberron setting, works fine. Anything pulpy adventure is Fate's wheelhouse, and that includes sword+sorcery.

Oh, it is- it's just classic fantasy is outstanding. You have a fantasy race replacing culture, class replacing your career, and have passions built into character creation.

You achieve higher ranks (which basically codifies cult ranks) by meeting specific target numbers on all you class skills, and each rank gives special benefits and abilities along with additional luck points. And then it has miniature combat rules that are really crunchy but pretty cool looking.

I would stil probably prefer sticking to one book over two, but if I was going to run a combat focused dungeon crawler type game it would be the best system for it.