[Dragonlance/Faerun] Anyone here met any Cataclysm/Wall of the Faithless defenders?

[Jason]

I personally don’t see why anyone is elated that two lines of text are errata’d away, when those two lines can be and usually are ignored by those who don’t like them.

Yep. It was a throw-away reference to past novel continuity, not a fundamental part of the Forgotten Realms setting.
In any case, the two lines are still in the book on my shelf unless I decide I should scratch them out rather than just continue to ignore them.

But then, I’ve never made it more than two pages through an FR novel, and I certainly don’t follow the nuances of which Realms deity said what on Tuesday morning in DR 1283 or whatever. I’ve done most of my 3.X gaming in the Realms, but I can’t recall any other player even mentioning one of the novels. I have a feeling that’s more typical than otherwise.

I've managed maybe three FR novels. They haven't ever come up at the gaming table.

You could just as easily call it science fiction with a few fantasy tropes. “Science fantasy” is as good a term as any.

My point, I guess, is that if you want to see how these books influenced AD&D you should probably read the books. I didn't read either Three Hearts and Three Lions or the Dying Earth stories until a few years ago. When I did it became obvious to me where some of the ideas in AD&D came from.

I recently read the Retief stories and am making my way through the Dumarest books and having the same experience with Traveller. "Oh, so that's where the name of the game came from, and why it's spelled in the British fashion."