IIRC, Michael Stackpole once said in an interview that he actually used the game's hit tables and dice to see where shots landed on a 'Mech.
He did, but he would change the outcome if it didn't keep the story alive, hence why VSD was only knocked unconscious by a gauss round passing through his cockpit. By dice rolls he also had Kai kill Vlad twice with a UAC20 round to the head, obviously that changed. :-)
I wouldn't say that alternative versions of the game coloured my perception of Battletech, but my knowledge of Battletech certainly coloured my perception of other games, particularly MW4. I did start with 2nd Ed as a young kid, in 86 or 87 (getting kind of fuzzy in my old age, we found the game on a shelf in Leisuretronics, a general gaming franchise which folded not long after we bought it. We played it for a while, but then it fell by the wayside until I was in my late teens. I was the only one of three boys in the house still at home, and went through the cupboard pulling out all of our old games, fixing the boxes up and periodically convincing my brothers or friends to play a game. I ended up buying every book and version of the game released for years, eventually I simply gave up with playing the game, and continued painting minis and reading books. Now I don't even do that as my kids tend to destroy minis, and I don't like the direction the game has been taking. Ahh well, it was fun while it lasted.