So I've been reading (listening to) the Legend of Drizzt series over the last year or so.  I finally finished book 27 (out of like 35) yesterday where they have the second sundering (transition from 4e to 5e mechanics).   It got me thinking.  The Legend of Drizzt series has been releasing books since the 80s starting with AD&D 1st edition, and there have been world changing events in the books for every D&D edition change since. 

Has anyone tried running a game that spans the 200 years or so of in game time, and crosses all 5 editions?  Starting with your players generating characters and playing under 1st edition rules.  Then have them live through the "Time of Troubles", and changing the characters over to 2e characters playing under 2e rules.  Then continue to play through the Vecna timeframe where again the characters in the campaign are forced to adapt over to and play under 3e rules.   Then play on introducing the "Spellplague" with accompanying shift over 4e characters and rules.  And, Finally having the campaign play through the second sundering and on into 5e adaptions of the characters playing under 5e rules.   Seems like it would be a pretty cool campaign to play (though with a lot of different edition gameplay learning), and a great homage to the evolution of D&D.    

Also... I think D&D Beyond/WOTC/Hasbro is missing a huge opportunity to up profits a bit by not offering all of the old D&D editions for sale on the site.  It would be pretty cool if they would add all the older edition books, and offer integration into campaigns by making DM's able to select which edition you wish your campaign to be and having that set the rules for character sheet construction/etc based on the edition chosen.  

The idea that there's a huge opportunity to profit by putting up all the old editions on DDB is and has been consistently rebuffed by the fact that 5e has outsold all prior editions of D&D combined by orders of magnitude and the fact that encoding DDB to support prior editions of D&D would de facto require the construction of at least six separate D&D Beyonds.  Just search DDB and older editions and you'll see all the old arguments.  There isn't a hidden opportunity that makes the potential profit worth it.  Now you do have all the edtions pretty well supported in the VTT diaspora, but those are passion projects and labors of love.

Playing through editions sounds inspired but are you hitting the reset button with new characters or reset version of characters every edition?  The way 1st level characters functioned, survived and died varied wildly between editions.  Converting characters leveled up is a rough at best art.  So you're playing different tiers of different games.  It's a lot of headaching.  I'm sure someone's tried it, but you would need a group of players really interested in the exercise, and have their interest sustained throughout the exercise to pull off, and many groups tend to be hit walls when changing rules.

Combine that with the fact that the staff are clearly overwhelmed just 5e stuff, never mind 1D&D, and it's just a non starter. They don't have the staff to do the current edition properly and have had the next one dumped on them - they really need to pick their battles. If you have enough money for one mine, and you have the choice between a source of gold and and equal size source of silver, you go for the silver.

The premise does sound interesting, and if I had [a lot] more time, it would be something I'd consider trying myself. It's not commercially viable to support it, though.

I actually disagree with the idea that playing through the older editions is a good idea. It's definitely an interesting idea, but narratively I doubt it would work. The nature of dnd is that the party will make choices, reacting to the world, & vice versa. If you have it planned to have these massive, universe-shifting events happening on a semi-regular basis, then your choices are either:

Have the PCs be the ones involved with that event. If you do this, then you're either severely railroading them into doing the prescribed plot, or you're spending some serious time weaving those threads together. 

OR

Have the PCs not be involved with that event. If you do this, then nothing they do will feel very spectacular when compared to the universe changing around them. "It's cool that we saved Waterdeep, but after the Spellplague everything kinda got screwed up anyway and now we're starting over". 

If you take the time to really figure out a careful thread of allowing players agency, it could work. But I don't see it working very well as a campaign. That's just my 2copper though, and I understand every table/DM is different. 

If you're all really into forgotten realms lore and want to run a game that spans decades (centuries? I dunno) of history where the players react to the big cataclysms (without being able to alter them, because then everything goes out of whack), go for it.

Doing it in multiple editions is, I guess, sort of a cool conceit, but it isn't necessary, because it's not necessary to the story.

IMO, the decision that they needed to do a big world-changing Event for each edition change was a silly one from a narrative point of view. This is unrelated to the content and quality of the stories or the actual world changes. It draws attention to the most artificial aspects of the stories, and it's really not needed to explain discrepencies.

I haven't tried it with multiple edition rules, no.  I do run the older adventures sometimes, but I update them best I can to 3e or 5e as far the rules go.  I do find the older adventure modules to likewise be more thoroughly prepared for me to use then more modern modules -i.e. it tells me what treasure is in each room for example; and most of my modules are Greyhawk or Kalimar.

I believe I am unique or at least rare in regard to this. I started playing D&D using 3e rules. This was before 4e or 5e.. or even 3.5x. I enjoyed it but due to the DM I was left disappointed with the restrictive feel of the game. A few years later I had an opportunity to play 3.5, but due to life it never manifested. So years go by and still not really playing D&D. Than I get a chance to play in a AD&D game with a few people that had been playing for years, and the DM was a worldbuilding DM, not so much a narrative DM. Which fit me perfectly, I grew up reading fantasy books and always wanted to look in the corners the writer never did, to try things the writer never had the characters try. So with a ruleset with so few painted lines, I was let loose with opportunity. The DM loved my playstyle because I wanted to explore more than anything else. I wasn't concerned with becoming the most powerful or the richest. I wasn't overly concerned with laws or meeting and learning the intimate details of every NPC. What brought me to the table week after week was being allowed to and encouraged to experiment, ask questions. Learn the lore of his world, and mess with things that made no sense. 
Many players I have played with over the last several years (5e) want WoW, or some kind of epic story (not to mention the constant injection of modern issues into the games). None of which are that important to me as a player. I want to know where the weed came from that was used to brew my tea, I want to be able to hire NPCs to do things and watch the reaction of the world to these choices. I want to know the sword style of the guards of a small town, and why they believe they use that sword style. I don't care that much if they use the swords to pick there butts, or fight demons. Though I would like to know what brought the demons and why they were there and how long etc. But, back to the point. The different editions of this game focused on different aspects, by going through the different editions each aspect can be more properly explored and understood. I have played every edition of the game, 5e is not the best edition for me. AD&D 1st and 2nd edition is, as there are not billions of rules and they both focus on exploration over stories. 5e is popular because so many players just want to be entertained, not be entertaining. With the advent of electronic based games, the imagination and critical thinking of people has been handicapped. D&D editions can be very well understood by the front matter in each editions Players handbook. AD&D and to a lesser degree 2e respected, and challenged its players to think for themselves. 3e forward they told you how to think, or at least made strong suggestions. 
So I would love to go through each edition in a campaign with people, I think a lot of 5e people would grow impatient with earlier editions though. 
TL:DR- old dude complaining about kids and their lack of imagination.

I think the biggest issue with trying to run a "same character across multiple editions of D&D" scenario is just how radically different the rules for character creation have been across the different editions.  Multiclassing in 1st and 2nd edition was very different from how it is in 3rd and 5th.  Ability scores didn't work the same.  You had racial restrictions on all sorts of things: ability scores, class selection, maximum level.  There were restrictions on ability score minimums and maximums for certain classes, even.  There was the silliness of dual-classing.  And then there was the epic annoyance of trying to qualify for the Bard class in 1E.