4e took a big, explicit step to the Gamist side of things.
If "Gamist" here means "metagamey" mechanics, than I agree. In particular, the Gygaxian approach to hit points and saving throws, which had never been fully applied to the active side of combat (though, as I've indicated upthread, I think it's somewhat implicit in the one-minute round), got extended across the whole game.
If "Gamist" here means "step on up" (the Forge sense of "gamist") then I don't agree. AD&D, as presented by Gygax, is very obviously about "step on up" (Gygax calls it "skilled play"). And in fact I don't think 4e suits Gygaxian play very well at all (as many complain, it is "dumbed down" or "instant gratification"). The sort of gamism it supports is more like showing of your skill with the mechanics and techniques of the game itself (eg "We got through 7 encounters without needing to take an extended rest!")
As a player, I find disassociatd mechanics impede my immersion and hence my roleplaying. They are distracting, steal focus from my character, and I must guard from additional meta-gaming.
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As for whether such mechanics should be part of RPGs in general, sure why not? The continuum is wide enough to handle a variety of games that support various forms of gameplay.
As for whether or not such mechanics should be in D&D, I'm a bit more conservative. If such mechanics are continued in D&D, they should be scrutinised to verify the disassociation is desirable and preferably in a excisable set of rules.
I don't want to merely retread too much ground - but as you know I have trouble seeing how hit points and saving throws can meet you standard of non-dissociation. I think they generate meta-gaming - from "I don't need to worry about the archers because they can't do enough damage to kill me", to the doing the maths to work out whether it is worth fireballing the trolls even though the fighter will also be caught inside it.
I guess more generally, D&D is the only RPG I'm familiar with that treats the ability to withstand being hit in combat as a resource.
I know that you and others upthread have talked about hp in terms of an abstraction of fatigue, wounding etc, but for me, I can't get over the point that it is treated as a resource. Which, for me at least, goes beyond mere abstraction.
As for excisable modules, sure! I've got nothing aganist excisable modules - I'm a long time Rolemaster player, after all. I myself had hoped that some of the more classic resource management aspects of D&D might themselves be in excisable modules in D&Dnext, but the playtest suggests that this may not be the case.
It's because the character (humanish, martial power) has no ability to rely upon to move any and every enemy regardless of size, intellect, range preference, ability to recognise a taunt, or any other criteria we care to categorise by.
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Unless Get Over Here is using the Voice a la Bene Gesserit, I don't understand why the target is forced to move. Perhaps,the character doesn't want to get over here?
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If the power is directed at a different PC, it does not appear resistable (though I could be wrong).
I agree that, by your criteria, unerrata-ed Come and Get It is dissociated. (While it need not be director stance - eg when used by polearm or staff fighter against other melee combatants - it is typically going to default to director stance.)
However, I think that, by your criteria, post-errata Come and Get It (which is, I think, what [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] posted) is associated but abstract: it requires a successful will attack before the enemey moves, which implies that the PC is actively toying with the minds of his/her opponents (4e does not have a "mind affecting category" outside of the notions of will attacks and psychic damage, neither of which affect objects), and although it uses STR, this is an abstraction in the same way that the separation of STR, CON and DEX is an abstraction (ie in real life these physiological traits of a person are not completely independent).
I also think that Get Over Here is, by your criteria, associated but abstract. 4e powers tend to be somewhat indifferent, in their drafting, between "slide an ally up to X squares" and "permit an ally to shift us to X squares as a free action". The practical difference is that the slide is not impeded by difficult terrain, whereas the shift is. In a very technical sense, PC 2 cannot resist forced movement imposed by PC 1, but I can't imagine any table in which, if player 2 said to player 1 "I really don't want my PC to be moved there", that the GM would enforce the movement against player 2's will. Just as the "pull" from Come and Get It is not literal (the NPCs/monsters may well be moving under their own steam), so the used of forced movement in ally-oriented buffs is just a mechanical convenience, with the additional modest side effect that it helps allies move through difficult terrain without drawing attacks of opportunity. To put it another way, I think you have been tricked into an error of classification here by your unfamiliarity with a certain mechanical "colloquialism" that 4e powers use.
An analogue might be someone who thought that "ranged touch" attacks in 3E must be dissociated, because the whole notion of a ranged touch is contradictory. That person would just be making a mistake, based on a misunderstanding of how the word "touch" is being used: it just being used for mechanical convenience - it captures the right notion (ie only DEX and the like, but not armour and shields, provide AC), and saves defining a new technical term.
I cannot really blame anyone who opens up the 4e PHB and thinks it's a combat only game. It's brutal. You get a half dozen pages of sort of fluffy stuff like character name and whatnot, then you get slammed with this mountain wall of powers, most of which are combat oriented, to the point where the non-combat stuff is pretty buried in the scrum, then you get feats which are mostly combat related, then you get equipment, almost all of which is combat related, then you get the combat rules. Finally, buried at the very back, is a section on rituals that is tacked on like an appendix.
I actually think this is a little unfair to the 4e PHB. It does have a lot of combat mechanics, but in the discussion of how the game is played, in the early pages, encounters are explicitly called out as having both combat and non-combat forms.
What I will happily agree
is weak in the PHB is its almost total lack of discussion of how non-combat resolution works. The skill challenge mechanics should have been in the PHB, not in the DMG - and the DMG could then have discussed how to design and adjudicate them, just as it does for combat encounters. (Though unfortunately only with reference to their tactical and mechanical, rather than also their story, significance.)
What did amuse me about your post, though, was that what you describe is almost exactly the judgement I've formed of D&Dnext to date. Where are the other two pillars - and especially the interaction pillar?
