OK, I'm a little bit late to the game here. All of these systems have been around for several years now, but I recently picked up Spirit of the Century, Reign and FantasyCraft, and I must say, I'm now a big fan of the Fate 3.0, the One Roll system and the MasterCraft system. I've since picked up the Wild Talents Essential Edition, Starblazers, Diaspora and all the character class pdfs from Crafty Games. All excellent products. There are a few one-roll PDFs on my to-buy list (as soon as I finish Starblazers, it's a big book). And I cannot wait for Dresden Files to come out this summer.
It seems a bit odd to me that two of these game systems (One Roll and MasterCraft) are fairly crunchy systems, given my general preference for story-focused games. But they both have an elegant, streamlined mechanic that I appreciate, and the flexibility to make (and to model with in-game rules) a mind-boggling variety of characters. There's a sweet-spot for me where the rules still provide structure to support my character ideas, but also provide enough flexibility to let me make almost anything I want. All three of these games hit that sweet spot exactly.
And I love the toolkit feel of both Wild Talents and FantasyCraft. I am always more interested in tools that help me make the game my own.
And Fate 3.0 (in all its variations) is almost a perfect game in my mind. I was thinking of developing a game that had many of the same beats, and I've largely lost my motivation. Fate 3.0 handles almost everything I wanted, and often handles it in a more-elegant way than I would have.
Anyway, if you haven't checked out these games, please do. They are well worth your time.
-Rich-
