I think the largest problem you're having is with Pathfinder. Pathfinder seems to have become the, "Disgruntled with 4e? Play this!" product.
I'm going to disagree. Pathfinder is just one avenue for those that dislike 4e. However, not everyone that dislikes 4e are going to Pathfinder. There are many people, based upon the alpha and beta, are finding Pathfinder changes to be as unsatisfying as 4e and are choosing to stick with or return to 3e (assuming they don't leave d20, DND, or gaming altogether).
If anything, the biggest challenge is the OGL of which Pathfinder is just one part. The products under the OGL (including Unearthed Arcana) allow for a wide customization of 3e and d20 in general.
Through the OGL, one can find options to give fighter types variety in combat, new spell systems, and changing the rules for magic item creation and not require xp. I sure that there are probably options for doing away with level drain, xp for casting certain spells, and save or die . There is even the upcoming Trailblazer from Bad Axe which will have options designed to help the DM fix various issues that some DMs and groups have with 3e including prep time.
Which is kind of sad, because most of our people who don't play 4e with us, even just for RPGA, don't really give it much of a chance. Most played it for one or two sessions when the game first came out and never came back and went to play Pathfinder.
I'd say one or two sessions is giving it a chance. That is a good enough time to get a feel for the game. They just are not enjoying the game for whatever reason.
For those not trying it, perhaps they have had experience with various 4e mechanics through Tome of Battle, Star Wars, or other games and know from experience that such mechanics are dealbreakers.
I personally dislike
a) per encounter mechanics
b) skill systems that give automatic increases per level rather than use skill points.
These two factors alone are going to be issues with my enjoyment of the game (yes, for myself, the mechanics are just as important as the people I am playing with).
Now, add in the following
a) rules meant to support dungeon crawl as opposed to other playstyles in general (I am looking at "Milestones" and Mearl's comments from another thread on why the currrent implementation rather than an earlier one exists);
b) how daily items work;
c) the short duration or numerous round onset of certain affects due to the save mechanics;
d) illusions doing hit points;
e) the mechanics of the ranger's animal companion which as written, imo, feels like a power rather than the existance of another creature (which was, imo, a problem with early editions of the Hero System, but something that later editons of Hero fixed and Mutants and Masterminds managed to avoid);
and several other design decisions and implementations and the game is not something I want to play despite the existance of some implementations and changes that I prefer to 3e.
The point of the above is that various people want different things of rpgs. For some people, 4e delivers those things while for others it delivers an experience that they don't like. For others, it will fall in between and players will base their decisions to play or not play based on the degree to which they can overlook the areas for which it falls short.