I'm just curious about how SR4 is played by people that really like the game, aka people on this forum.

I didn't really care much for any of the choices up there, as none of them work for the way I run my games. I sort of pick and choose. The rules as written are a good set of rules and I really don't fuck with them too much, but if something doesn't make sense to me or my players, or if we are at the time just too lazy to look them up then we will make up shit as we go along, sticking with it until we actually either know the official ruling on it or we officially make something of our own. If something hasn't come out yet for this edition then I will create it by example from 3rd edition. So, yeah, that is how I play my games, I like it, it usually works well and I don't get any complaints from my players.

I'm lazy enough to mostly use the rules as presented with some variations. I figure max speed into "breaking off" vehicle maneuvers, etc. I haven't had a problem with stick'n'shock yet, but it could certainly be a candidate for revision or elimination just like anything else that causes a problem. We as a group vote on optional rules and proposed house rules like that, so a bit of a mix. Mostly we just try to have fun in a game that makes sense without wasting everyone else's time.

My adjustments to the rules are generally able to be classified into three categories.

1) Quality of Play Rules: Designed to speed gameplay or make the rules internally consistent where they deviate. For instance, the actual skill/stat/program rolls for hacking are different, so that skill and stat make more of a difference than program rating. Because that's how everything else in the game works.
2) Logical Consistency Rules: I rule that wards work on ritual sorcery if the target is within one, that only one spirit can Aid Sorcery on ritual sorcery, that Reaction Enhancers and Wired Reflexes can both be installed (even if only one of them can be on at a time). Things that, IMO, keep the game world's behavior in line with the history and fiction for it.
3) "That's Stupid" rules: anything that I think would just be better served by a more robust or different set of rules, because as they're written they may promote cheese or odd situations. I changed the street rep/notoriety rules. I didn't use the 'response times' table for Lone Star in 3rd Edition (no cop cars will show up in under six seconds, for example).

It depends entirely on the rules and what they're doing. I'd say 90% of my rules are as written in the books, with a few small changes here and there. I also invent shit willy nilly if I feel like it. In my games, there have been cyberware equivalents to the adept 'Combat Sense' power; I called it the 'Threat Analysis and Prediction System'.

Others. I use the rules as they are and I do not love them or hate them. They just are.

Other: I alter the setting to emphasize the elements I prefer (heavy magic overtones, more street elements, more underworld elements, less corporate espionage). I also house rule everything I find stupid in the rules, which in SR4 is actually very minor compared to my previous sets of house rules.

I stick very closely to the rules as written, through a combination of work avoidance and because they really are already very good indeed. I have three or four house rules (depending on whether you agree with an intepretation of mine or not). For the most part, they're pretty minor.

1. You are allowed only one sprint action per turn. I believe that this was the intent of the rules and it was just poorly written. Using this leads to very realistic movement rates and I like it. Allowing multiple sprint actions per turn leads to hideously broken movement rates.

2. I have created my own lifting rules out of necessity. The ones in the book appear to be guaged so that with excellent rolls, you can lift your maximum lift. However, this is hopelessly flawed because it means with average rolls, you lift nowhere close to your maximum. You can bench press 250lbs on one attempt and then suddenly find that you only bench press 200lbs on the next. I've remedied these wildly implausible swings (whilst retaining some rolls) as follows:

Though I voted the first option, most of my house rules come up in the same three categories Adarael mentioned. The fourth category I add, of course, is Continuity Maintenance rules - ie house rules designed to maintain continuity with previous editions.

I said "I revamped it all", though I don't think that exactly reflects my game. I have indeed changed a lot of stuff, some of it major. Like combat turn structure. I don't use turns and IPs. We play combat as a series of ticks, and the number of ticks between a character's turn and his next turn is equal to 5 minus the number of bonus IPs he has. I prefer this, I feel it flows nicely.

I've barely touched the hacking rules, on the other hand.

Most of my house-rules serve the purpose of making the rules work the way I like (that is, they are fun and keep things exciting) and also reducing bookkeeping for me (there's only so much I can be bothered to track; I almost never track full condition monitors for goons, I just give them the 4 states of Unhurt, Hurt, More Hurt and Dead.)

Then of course, I change some things just because they irk me. Like how a punch with bone lacing causes Physical damage, but getting hit with an aluminum bat causes Stun. So I made bone lacing cause stun.

I've changed the whole Initiative system, and before anybody asks: Yes they will be online someday when I've finished the last bits (the bits that never come up in play, but you will need some day eventually).

Lars

Mostly RAW but with some sections that are completely different. Ritual Sorcery to avoid the ritual of die-mutha! that seems to be favoured. Vehicle combat, though that hasn't been used much, and several other things like melee.

A few more specific changes too; Killing Hands grants bonus damage and -1 AP since with unarmed combat you can choose stun or physical damage.

The rest is pretty much the same. Hacking, the magic stuff, and so on. Vehicular combat was too abstracted for us, the guys who like their wheeled toys.