Ummm... the 4e skill system is pretty much exactly the same as the 3e system. The only difference is it automatically puts ranks into the skills you chose at first level via your 1/2 level bonus. And, like 3e, if you're not trained in a skill you really shouldn't bother even attempting it (unless you have a high ability score, in which case you probably should have trained that skill).
False or misleading on three counts.
The first count is that in 4e you get a bonus to your
untrained skills as well as your trained ones. Huge difference because except for major focus-skills it keeps the difference down.
Second, as 4e has fewer skills, and it's easier to gain the trained bonus, it's possible to make a first level fighter with effectively more trained skills than a high-int 3.X rogue - while not substantively weakening him as a fighter. Needing to make skills without training or decent stats is therefore comparatively rare.
Third, there are three tiers of skill checks - hard for specialists (and yes, specialists blow through this one), medium for people with training or a high stat, and easy that will challenge those without either. If you have a low stat and are untrained (remember that 4e skills are much broader than 3.X skills) you just need to work out how to make something easy - or use another skill.
Except Utilities are almost exclusively combat orientated.
No. Utilities are
largely combat orientated. Something very different. Yes, probably three out of every four utilities are for combat. Between splat books, themes, and skill powers (normally more out of combat than utilities) you're still spoiled for choice. You only need to actually pick one utility at each level.
Out of curiosity, do you use DDI and the Character Builder? Because it might explain this assertion if you don't.
And rituals drain the party coffers, being prohibitively expensive at low levels for very little benefit.
And very cheap when you've levelled a little. Or are a bard and can cast bardic rituals for free.
What is fun for casters is the cantrips. I loved cantrips in my wizard and it was a great shame more classes didn't have them. I was especially disappointed by the psion, who had a mage hand equivalent as an encounter power.
Agreed. And it's one of the things Essentials-era classes do much better than classic 4e classes.
Yes, I'm sure 4e had a completely sustainable fanbase. Which is totally why WotC decided to tank their profit for eighteen months and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, risking all their jobs and the survival of the brand, on the success of a new edition.
You mean the 4e fanbase is slightly less lucrative than the 3.5 one? Where they only tanked it for a full year (the final non-DM supplement for 3.5 was Complete Champion, released in May 2007). And they weren't raking in DDI cash then so it's not quite as high a level of tanking.
The only non-transition book published after Complete Champion was the
Monster Manual V. (The final non-transition 4e book appears to be Heroes of the Elemental Chaos).
So yeah, I don't see the treatment of 4e to be substantively different to that of 3e.
Because, from what I've seen here and on the WotC message boards, older fans are happy with the compromised version they've been given and are happy to get something, and are not asking for everything. Meanwhile, the 4e fans are arguing over Vancian magic and every single throw back.
You must have missed the long arguments about the hit dice and self healing being a bad thing, at will spells being terrible (including someone saying that an at will spell gave unlimited power to destroy doors or walls, seeming to confuse it with at-will disintegrate), and a lot of active gravedancing about 4e.
Remember: the best revenge is living well. Thusly, the best revenge on WotC is to play something else and have fun.
If you're talking about revenge, I suggest you look at your own feelings as to why you have the impressions you do.
