I've heard the combat initiative system in SR3 is vastly superior, for example.

I've run and played a lot of Shadowrun pnp (SR2 was my first and favorite rpg) so I might be able to offer some help. First off, SR3 is basically just a slightly updated SR2 and I can't think of any reason not to run SR3 as it is just more polished/better as a system. You probably heard a lot about SR2 in terms of the setting and adventures being better, which I agree with. They are totally playable with the 3rd ed. rule books though with no real updating. The atmosphere and 'metaplot' (ongoing setting changes) for 3rd ed. always felt worse than what was happening in the 1st and 2nd ed. books to me (and though I started with 2nd it was when 3rd was already out and never owned any 2nd ed. books until after I owned some 3rd ed. ones). For adventures, I recommend starting with 'Queen Euphoria' (which is a 1st ed. book so will need a little updating, basically use the stats for the same gear from the later books) if your players haven't played 'Shadowrun: Returns' and then running the one about the universal brotherhood. A lot of people didn't like the published adventures that were more run of the mill shadowruns (like 'Dark Angel' I think? or was it 'One Stage Before'?) but I think they really give a new gm a good idea of how the writers and designers see the world and how shadowrunning fits in.

For gm advice, I think it is important not to start with all of the 'splat' books (the expanded rulebooks for each type of character) but to gradually introduce them (or elements from them) as you and your players become more comfortable with the basic rules. Don't bother with full matrix/driving/astral rules if no players are involved and only some hired help or what have you. If managing combat pool for the npcs is too much of a hassle then use the rules for threat pools (I think they are called) where they add a smaller number of dice to every test depending on their status (mook, Lt., boss etc). The initiative system in SR3 is better, but less 'realistic' in that each player gets to go once before any player gets to go twice, meaning the wired sammie doesn't finish every encounter before the mage gets a chance to act. I pretty much always played in Seattle and enjoyed how well supported it was, since it seemed like it was where you were 'supposed' to be playing.

Initially I think SR3 and the shadowrun companion for that edition, along with 'Matrix' and 'Rigger' for 3rd if any players are playing those 'classes' then the rules in the corebook are pretty shallow and/or broken. I'd also use 'Cybertechnology', 'Cannon Companion', and 'Grimoire'(?) but only for the gear initially while introducing the extra rules later as desired/needed. I found 'Fields of Fire' full of really badly done gear though and wouldn't recommend it except as info. on Shadowrun mercenary life. 'Mr. Johnson's Blackbook' is a great resource for a gm iirc. and 'Sprawl Sites' is full of good gm reference stuff (maps, npcs). Other good books would be the Seattle sourcebook (the original was much better done than the 3rd ed. one, but obviously the latter is more up to date), 'Sprawl Survival Guide' has good setting material, 'Paranormal Animals of North America' was the only full bestiary for NA but has 1st ed. rules (otherwise nice though), and the 'Neo-Anarchist Guide to Real Life' seemed really cool and full of atmosphere, the 'Corporate Security Guide' is full of great advice/npcs for creating the location and opposition on your typical shadowrun, and the Lonestar book covers cops in more detail.

I'm sure I missed some good stuff, but I know I named a lot of books already, I tried to include what they are good for but if I can provide any more info. let me know. (Street Samurai Catalog looked way cooler than Cannon Companion but had less stuff and everything it had was updated in Cannon Companion).

At the end of the day you can't go wrong picking either SR2 or SR3. I think if you are going to run a bunch of SR2 modules it will be easier to play SR2 as you won't have to convert lots of crap to SR3, basically.

I think there are valid points in relation to the older editions fluff being 'just better' than what we got with 4th and 5th Ed. The Dystopia is gone in the new editions, as is the sense that the Megacoprps are more than just... well.... corporations. Maybe it's because the world today is more dystopian than we realise but I digress....

However, these are no reasons to actually play those god awful editions. In terms of Shadowrun, besides perhaps the way intitiative changed from 3rd to 4th edition, the bigger the edition number the better. Yes, this includes 5th Ed. We can whinge about book editing or conceptually not liking limits but for all intents purposes it's the best system to date (which still isn't saying much).

My advice would be to use the fluff of the older editions and use the mechanics of 5th ed. Otherwise you'll try and run the matrix once in 2nd Ed and flee from Shadowrun never to return................

Id ditch the idea that decking is super fast to, its more interesting when you cut scenes like a comic book or movie where hes just hacked the IO and players have to deal with a security patrol thats about to walk in on their decker etc.

Makes sense to me. Any house rules / GM sheets that you can point me to? I appreciate the earlier recommendation about module order, I'll read over them. Ditto for matrix play, sounds like I need to make decisions about how I want Decker PCs to play out their matrix missions.

I think what is meant is that Decking used to be X Matrix Turns to Y Physical Turns with X being the larger number (iirc it was something like 4). I would say don't ditch the idea that Decking is ultra fast (otherwise why bother with all the VR, the infamous nanosecond buyout etc?) it's pretty cool for the Decker to be able to do loads at the speed of thought. But when it comes down to the Combat (ie:physical) Turns interaction do what they did in SR5 (and as I used to run in SR3) which makes a Matrix turn = a Combat/Physical turn.

If you do the suggested in cutting down on nodes and stuff then it actually links in quite well anyway and makes party interaction mid run a lot better. Everything happening in the same timescale gets a lot more interesting if they need a matrix override on a door because they get spotted by the security team, but the decker is having to crash or suppressed some IC before he can hack(or command) that system. Less fun if the Decker gets 4 turns of 3-4 initiative passes a turn triggering and derezzing IC, hacking systems, jumping hosts etc before anything happens with the ground team.

Awesome awesome awesome. This is the kind of experienced feedback I really appreciate. What do you mean by the above though? Are you just reiterating the need to simplify the matrix structure, making it more comic-like and less.. well, tedious?

Spell Locks... I remember they suck alot but I dont recall why.

Spell Locks are fucking awesome.

The drawback to them is that Grounding is a thing in 2e, so walking around with any active focus or spell lock means you are a grenade waiting to go off in the middle of your team if the opposition has a mage in the Astral with any of the Blast spells.

On the contrary, I always loved it. It kept mages from turning into D&D characters festooned with magical items.

Never had the issue of mages festooned wit Foci. Not even when Grounding went away. Background Counts and Magical Addiction tend to keep the numbers small.

Foci addiction had to be enforced by the GM. Grounding on the other hand was pretty much always in effect.