I will confess that I like the NAB, probably because I read the entire concordance that came with it, and all the footnotes, and even went and looked at all the cross references, every time, when I read it through the first time.
It may be that all of the ancillary scholarship was just so good and so interesting that I can't bring myself to criticize something I invested so much effort in.
By contrast, I really don't like to read either the KJV or the Douai-Rheims. The English is very strained, to the modern reader. Also, the ones that I have do something weird to the text, italicizing words or bolding certain syllables, as though they are trying to tell me how to PRONOUNCE it when reading it. If find this immensely irritating for a whole passel of reasons, a few of which are:
(1) If you really read it and stress the text as printed, the English is not only difficult to read, it sounds absolutely ridiculous, like the minister in the Princess Bride.
(2) There is nothing like that in the Greek or Hebrew from with it's taken. There's not even punctuation in that. It's already an interesting enough choice to put quotation marks around expressions following "and God said..." Because, actually, if you DON'T put the quotation marks around anything, it is all a paraphrase. Which of course is what the Bible probably IS. There's no ancient textual basis for pounding down one's fist and saying NO! Where it says "And Jesus said...", then Jesus LITERALLY spoke the following words, just like they are printed. That's a bold assertion based on texts without any convention of quotation marks. If we believe that the Holy Spirit inspired scripture, given the absence of any quotation-mark critters in either ancient Greek or ancient Hebrew, it might be true that the Bible contains the Words that God intends us to hear and know and understand, but if you go back in time with a tape recorder, the words coming from Jesus' mouth might be different words. And this wouldn't matter, would it, because Jesus was God, and the Holy Spirit is God, so if God wants to make sure we get the message, without the benefit of Jesus' body language and context, He might inspire the writer to write "and Jesus said..." and then give not a literal transcription in phonemes, but a literal transcription in divine meaning and intent, which could use completely different words. I am always amused (and vaguely annoyed) and the assertion that presumes to prohibit God from being clever.
(3) There is a PARTICULAR problem with this sort of thing in the KJV, not because the fact that it's in the KJV with the strange italics and bolded syllables, but because of what some people make of the KJV. I have hard-core Southern Baptist minister cousins who really assert that the KJV is the only valid Bible. They also assert "every word", just like Jesus said. One referred me to a tract in which the difference of one "s" in something Paul said made a difference ("seed" versus "seeds"). Paul makes the point. Of course, "s" makes ENGLISH words plural, and Paul was writing in Greek. Some of this stuff is just embarrassing, but you can't fight the silliness factor too hard without attacking somebody's faith (in this case my own cousins) so after an arched eyebrow, you've just got to let it pass. However, given that I really know and am related to people who really preach that the KJV is the only complete, sacred word of God in English (I DO always ask about the Maccabbees, because I'm not willing to roll over and leave them COMPLETELY in possession of the field...), I worry about those italics and stress marks (if that's what they are). Are those traditional marks and indicators, too, a part of the sacred text of the KJV? Are they part of the "jots nor tittles" that shall not pass?
There's something vaguely idolatrous about the whole thing, from my perspective, but I don't take it out with them and spoil Thanksgiving.
Instead, very passive aggressively, I go on FR and take it out on people I don't know from Adam, anonymously in the middle of the night. LOL.
The only reason they're in italics is because they are optional or changeable words (grant him; grant her; grant them in this world knowledge of thy truth . . . ). But too many readers assume that italics always mean an emphasis in pronunciation. In many Bibles, additional words, words not appearing in some sources, or variant translations are italicized, bolded, etc.
Know what you mean about posting in the middle of the night -- but I've got nothing else to do -- my hubby had to go to a family funeral while I stayed behind, because one of the kids is in school (the other is on spring break) and the other had her wisdom teeth out Wednesday. . . not a very enjoyable spring break all round.
Some of the points you make may be valid, but I have also observed some charlatans who seek to rewrite Scripture to satisfy their personal lusts and who knows what else.
The issue of KJV only isn't grossly unreasonable. The Greek does indicate gender, tense, singular/plural, along with some ability to stress emphasis in statements being made. One could well argue the Greek language far surpasses the English in being able to more literally communicate the intended meaning by its semantics and syntax.
Because of those who seek to counterfeit Scripture, e.g. gay-lesbian-bifriendly 'churches', I haven't found anything wrong with somebody relying on the KJV for an authoritative source in Scripture.
For myself, I've been led in word studies to review many parallel translations, which even 20 years ago would have been limited to maybe 3 or so in a cumbersome fashion, but today with PCs and the Internet, is possible to parallel study 20 or so fairly readily on multiple words, concurrently.
The real challenge is to simple study through faith in Christ allowing the Holy Spirit to make His Word efficacious in us, training not only our thinking in our soul, but also for Him to further develop and sanctify our spirit on a daily continuous basis.