Osgood
Hero
This is both really interesting and rather disappointing to hear. Your group sounds like it has opinions on 3E and 4E that are not very different from my own, so it weakens my enthusiasm a little...
Keep the faith brother (or sister). While I was initially pretty discourage too, I remind myself that this was the base game. If (and its a big if) WotC can deliver rule modules that allow each group to craft their own version of D&D, I think it can work. To me the critical element is that the rule modules that allow the play styles of 3e/4E come out (preferably) with or at the same time as the core rules. I don't want to wait 6 months to play D&D my way...