Sanda, I guess you found the Tutorial in CSI 1 annoying because you already played the later games so you knew what to do. Fortunately I played the series 'in order' so it didn't matter to me. They were right to seperate the tutorial part from the main game in the later versions though.
What I find strange is that you were given tools in the first game that you don't have in the later ones - the gas detector in the arson case and the infra red heat scanner in A Barrel Full of Corpses. It would have been nice to have at least one case somewhere else that you use them.
About the first case, you go back to that in Ledas Swan Song so it gets sorted out in the end, although its a bit irritating that they give you new evidence that you couldn't access originally to solve it. Thats the way all the CSI games work, the final case revisits the suspects from earlier ones and resolves some missing details. When you play CSI Miami the final case really goes over the top in this regard.
I agree that Garvey's Beat is one of the most interesting cases in the whole series, but it aso has a few holes in it which aren't explained very well, like how come nobody in the world knew that the crime writer and the Professor were the same person. And if he wanted to take credit for the original murder why did he react like all the other suspects do, as if he was annoyed about being under suspicion?
Also with the Better than a barrel full of corpses case, notice anything familiar about the animal trainer at the start who calls you in?
Good luck with Ledas Swansong, it's probably the toughest case in that game, but that isn't really saying much