About I Ching translations:
You'll notice that I used a qualifier there, "As used by..."
There really isn't a single I Ching. There isn't a "best" translation. It's like finding "The Tarot": is that a Marseilles Tarot? Which Marseilles? An RWS Tarot? A Thoth?
The I Ching, as a book, exists in several versions in Chinese, with the "alphabet" used to write the book having changed over that time, and the spoken language having changed over that time. It's even worse than choosing a Bible translation, as it goes back farther in time, with a less specific language being recorded.
The use of the English term "translator" is somewhat deceptive. Every "translator" is also exercising a great deal of interpretation, usually in accord with a "school" of I Ching interpretation. The Taoist school are rather like our Western Ceremonial Magicians: they have a myth and they're sticking with it, (Tarot is based on the Cabala), damn the academics (it's a card game). That's Alfred Huang's perspective in analogy--and yep, he is ignoring the academics; he's teaching tradition and he's very clear about that.
I am not so forgiving of Karcher. Karcher just makes stuff up. Karcher cherry-picks from thousands of years of Chinese traditions and texts (and remember China is a big place) to "recreate" the original oracle of a shamanic religion. Karcher is basically beavering away at making a Chinese "Wicca" (here the analogy is Gerald Gardner). That's fine; just don't say it's The Original I Ching; we're beyond that now. We can handle made-up religion.
Now I am trying to think of the best ranslation that takes into account modern scholarship...you see, as a part of being accurate, they also are specific: Rutt's translation is of Bronze Age Chinese. Cleary has done translations of a Buddhist I Ching and a Daoist I Ching; Wilhelm/Baynes is of the Confucian school.
I'd recommend Richard John Lynn's The Classic of Changes "as interpreted by Wang Bi" (226-249 AD) as the best translation in terms of keeping current with modern standards of scholarship and context.
About I Ching decks:
In Pagan X's ideal world, decks are designed based on specific translations and schools of interpretation, so I Ching users can both find, evaluate, and use them within their preferred schools. Just like Tarot.
That given, then we can discuss the issues of "how does one represent I Ching Gua as scenes on cards". With six line statements, sometimes that's more than one "scene". Makers of I Ching decks usually focus on one line or the other; but the lines statements within one Gua can be very different in how positive or negative they are, so you can compare different decks and have very different takes between the same Gua. (You may notice that I am not using the term "hexagram". My Personal Radical Heresy is that I think the "hexagrams" are just numbers. That the six-line glyphs have no cosmic or meaning significance at all. None. Zippo. Nada.)
Most of the I Ching decks produced, in my opinion, are far too "meditative" and "Soothing": the producers are focusing on the image of the I Ching as an Eastern object of meditation. Plus, they tend to just redirect the user back to a book, so why have an I Ching deck? (Yes, US Games and Lo Scarabeo, I'm talking about YOU!)
All the Western created I Ching decks that I have seen are based on the Wilhelm/Baynes translation.
The Ceremonial Magic Tarot decks that have I Ching hexagrams on them are using the Legge translation via Crowley.
I am not familiar enough with the Haindl deck to be absolutely certain, but I'd put money on it being based on Wilhelm without the Baynes.
The Tao Deck is based on Wilhelm/Baynes via Osho; it is pretty and nice I Ching illustrations, but, again, too nice for me as a useful divination deck; and throw away the companion book if you want to use your own intuition at all.
The "I Ching Tarot" under discussion is also, in my opinion, the best deck for the Wilhelm/Baynes translation; and the Lynn translation; ok, we're all good.
, but I'm interested in the 'numerical' idea. I understood that the chinese don't (or didn't) have a 'numerology', from the few sources I've seen.