What do you mean gone? 'Rituals not in that book' does not mean 'magically deleted or errata'd from all 4E books'. Rituals are still 4E, if you want them buy the PHB1 etc.
That's all fine and dandy if you already own the core books, but what about us who'd want to try 4E with the revised/errata rules without investing those extra 120 bucks (which is actually 120 *euros* over here) on getting rituals and the "4E classic" classes and non-random treasure parcels?
You see, I'm kind of confused about the target demographic of the 'Essentials' line; I guess they primarily intended the books for those newbies who try 4E with the new Red Box. Yet it seems there are some mechanical differences (hard to say whether they're editing errors or intentional, but the latter would be IMO an unwise design decision) between the two, so I'm not so sure about it. On the other hand, they said they want former players and "naysayers" to try 4E with the 'Essentials'. However, it looks like a lot of "core" players and DMs have posted that they're going to buy the books, because for *THEM* it's just a bunch of rule updates and more character options.
What about us? The people who decided not to try 4E when it came out ("naysayers" and people who customarily play other RPGs) but would now like to try the game with all the revised core stuff? I want the rituals and the "core" classes, plus the updated/revised skill, power and monster mechanics. And I want a decent amount of magic items and hazards, plus feats for *ALL* the levels. Is there a way to do that without paying hundreds of dollars or printing out hundreds of pages of errata and revisions? I just don't see it. In my opinion WoTC should have put out a new, updated printing of the core books for veteran gamers who want to get the full and updated core rules of the game. This isn't it. Instead, I see this as a half-hearted attempt at "hooking" whatever people they can, and in the end they probably cater better to their *existing* customer base with these new options and a slightly simplified rules set. Although I don't fully agree with them, I can understand why some people say that this looks like an act of desperation.
Besides, I'm not interested in new tokens, or battlemaps, and I hate the paperback format -- not to mention that digest-size with one pagagraph layout is a bit hard on my old eyes. Give me the reprinted core books and my group will buy them. If not, I think we'll keep on playing other games until 5E comes out.
