I thought it was about time I answered this set of questions. So, here you go.

1. Are abridged books a good thing or just plain awful? For the most part, and for my purposes specifically, I can’t stand even the thought of abridged books. The first time I saw a Reader’s Digest volume of condensed stories as a child I was repulsed. I basically feel the same way about abridged books, in general, as I do about colorizing the old black and white movies. Generally speaking, colorizing movies and abridging books is ghastly. However, both practices do introduce some people to things that they would ordinarily avoid. I’ve known quite a few people who wouldn’t ever watch a black and white movie. I don’t know their reasons, just the results. And as a result, they’ve never seen some awesome movies. I imagine that abridging books would bring in the same type of audience, but in the book world. Yes, I’m hedging. A lot. See my answer to the last question to find out why!
2. How about books that are edited to modernize them? Nope. Don’t like this practice, either. Though I have to admit to avoiding a few volumes in the past because the old English was just too hard for me to read.
3. Is dated language part of the charm of a book or an irritation? Dated language. It is charming. It is part of the story, as much as current slang is part of a lot of modern stories. Again, to hedge just a little, so long as it’s quite clear from the cover of the book in, some stories may get a wider appreciative audience if their language were updated just a bit.
4. Have you ever read an abridged or edited version of a book? To my knowledge, I have only read one book that was an abridged version, Tales from the Arabian Nights, as translated by Richard F. Burton (not the actor). As a total guess, I’d say that probably about fifty of the original one thousand tales are in the volume that I read—That was plenty, thank you. So, yes, the book was abridged, but each story was full length. It was quite fun to read the full version of Sinbad the Seaman and Sinbad the Landsman; Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp; Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves; and other wonderful old stories.