Bring on the plant elemental dryads, say I. I'd rather see interesting changes than uninteresting revisions just so that a monster better fits a description given by Bulfinch.
For me, it's double-fisted.
On the one fist, we've got the heady stout of tradition speaking. Dryads have a real historical presence as "sexy tree girls," from one of the earliest written languages to today. If I can't see a god running after one in a fury of addled lust, it weakens how useful that history is in the game. With the 3e dryads, more or less, I can do that. "Sexy tree girls" is more than just appearance, too. Mythographically speaking, it represents a certain icon of the "virgin wilderness," a notion of civilization as progress and masculine and aggressive, of the wilderness as natural and feminine and shy. It's a whole yin/yang thing, and the Dryad is a "yin" in this ages-old Western iconography. Trees are feminine, they grow from the earth directly, they bear fruit, they have curves, their flowers and leaves flow like hair. To affront a tree is to violate nature, is to take this shy and retreating creature and mistreat it, filling you with kind of an allegorical forceful taking of innocence, of destructive change, and of loosing something when you conquer the wilderness. You've got that mythography, and you've got the classic stories that D&D is, in part, a vehicle of re-imagining.
On the other fist, we've got the pale ale of game play. Dryads as a monster in D&D need to be able to *do* something, and something unique, to justify their position. Like any monster, they should fill at least three roles: ally, adversary, and anybody. As an Ally, a dryad should provide a boon to certain types of characters (namely, those nature-focused characters like rangers), befriending them, giving them succor, allowing them to do their cool thing even better (a dryad's leaf cover providing ample opportunity to snipe, for instance). As an Adversary, a dryad should want to actually fight certain types of characters (namely, those characters who disrespect her trees), engaging in a multifaceted and interesting combat. Here, things like the idea to use Dryads as a kind of controller surface: a dryad manipulates the environment around her enemies, calling the plants and the earth itself to her side, weaving the trees like they were silk, sprouting plants as if the fullness of spring arrived in an instant, striking with the solidity of an oak branch. There's a lot of combat possibilities for that. As an Anybody, a dryad needs to have a function in the world beyond the PC's. Clearly, they are spirits of trees: they exist as the avatara of the woodlands, and wherever the sylvan wood grows strong enough, these Dryads exist, knowing all that passes beneath the branches.
In neither of these fists do I think we need to abandon the "sexy tree nymph" image. Sexy tree nymphs evoke the classic imagery and the themes of Western storytelling from time immemorial, and they can be interesting and challenging encounters in a variety of ways, as well as having an existence beyond the encounter.
Now, that problem is ENTIRELY avoided with a simple descriptor or flavor text nudge to show clearly that this "dryad" is NOT meant to be the dryad we all know from our storytelling heritage. It's supposed to be something else: attack shrubbery or treant side-kick saplings or something. Not a proper dryad (though perhaps people take to calling it some sort of dryad).
If they DON'T do that simple nudge, and imply that this twisted thing is somehow THE DRYAD, like scientists pointing out that manatees are not mermaids, they'll have removed all the magic from the thing. Why they would feel the need to do that when I, at least, can clearly see the design space for a solid sexy monster dryad, I wouldn't likely begin to comprehend.
I've got no problem with that picture being some dryad-like monster thing that's fun to kill. Treant minions, whatever. I'll be disappointed if they just stick with calling that thing The Dryad, though. Because clearly (IMO), there should be dryads in the game, and clearly (again IMO) there's no reason they need to be removed from their mythological place to be put there.
Okay, okay... how about giving them lignifying poison like the barkburr? They could transform enemies into trees, forest animals, or humanoid druids.
