Funny - and, now, sadly - enough, the offline version they were forced to make due with is a thousand times better then their online version that they wanted.
Speaking of which, things the online CB does not have in comparison:
No exporting
No houserules
No altering magic items
No adding feats or powers to characters (Do you add expertise automatically to character? Not anymore!)
No sharing characters with others (Hello, now gigantic DM workload!)
No offline usage
No viability with popular websites such as iPlay4e
No usage when servers are down
This isn't some vast and terrible conspiracy against WotC. It's WotC taking a powerful, awesome, and incredibly useful tool, and then shooting it - and themselves - right in the face. That's why people are pissed; because Character Builder added a ton to their games, and now it's being taken behind the shed for no given reason.
Since it is basically a new program built from the ground up instead of a modified version of the existing system, it is being put up with limited functionality. They were not going to update the old version anymore, because, for them, this is a better method (it makes more sense for WOTC financially, and it has a larger potential market since it runs on Macs and you technically needed an internet connection for the old builder anyway, although now you need it more often).
The lack of functionality may seem to some as something they may never get around to, but instead is probably a case of not wanting to have ANOTHER delay before giving a character builder that handles Essentials (and Dark Sun). If the alternatives were:
(a) Put the new product out this month without some of the functionality that is important, but not core
or
(b) Delay it another month and put it out with the ability to export, etc
The latter isn't exactly a good idea. Also, they likely want to see what bugs crop up when users use the current "basic" system before adding functionality that could introduce more errors to the mix.
I understand how it can be difficult to trust "we'll add that stuff in later" or even more cryptic "not at this time" language after delayed updates and unfinished earlier software promises, but it seems much more likely that some of the features are merely things that aren't fully functional yet, and have been disabled for the initial release to make sure it gets out on time.
As for iPad, I did a search on how to address it, and I stumbled upon a weird program that enables Flash and stuff like it, by doing a weird workaround (it runs a browser on a computer on their end and sends the image to the iPad and back again). I'm not sure how well it will work with the builder (it was able to play a video from Blip, which iPad can't normally do) but if it does I'll post a link to the app here. I'm going to start DM'ing a Dark Sun campaign soon, so I'll probably get the players to make them directly on my account. If I can do that off my iPad it would be a lot easier than having to go over to their place, or vice versa to work on one of our computers.
