While I'm reserving final judgment till I see the actual game, I think that they've really streamlined things and made the system more elegant. The background - not the system - is what made me love the other editions, and that's not changing.

I think the accusations of it becoming a boardgame are unfounded. As a D&D 3.5 player, I've used various Game Mastery products, and having on-table references really do make things easier and slow the game far less for rules references.

I even like the new dice mechanic - it seems simple and intuitive to me. However, I can see excessive numbers of rolls tripping it up, but that will be a hard call to make till I see the mechanics.

The party card is about the only thing that I really don't like. I'd much rather roleplay party interactions than have them dictated, but I figure that if all else fails, I can simply scrap that one element of the system.

Overall, I'm intrigued.