Neonchameleon
Legend
Hussar, i think many of us were perfectly happy with the old HP system.
And many of us do not want to go back.
how much of a difference healing surges present to thgame clearly varies from individual to individual. I am with byron, they were a huge mechanical change to the game. You can build all kinds of arguments to try to "prove" they weren't but I have to say I don't find these very convincing any more (mostly they are semantic-like your's here). Healing surges present a vast change because they shift rapid heals from being the sole domain clerics to coming from mundane sources and even themselves. In previous editions I had to wait for a cleric or magic item to heal me. This creates a change in the way the game plays (and if it doesn't then I have to ask you what is so great about 4e healing then becuase it was clearly designed to fix what some people saw as a major problem of play in earlier editions) and in the way people see the events unfold in the game. You may not consider it a vast change but for many it is.
Oh, no one doubts they were a mechanical change. They meant that the toughest meatshields were no longer clerics - a single casting of Cure Light Wounds being enough to make sure that the Cleric brought more hit points to the party than the Fighter. They mean that no one now needs to play the healbot. They allowed the reality of hit points to match the fluff that has always been presented in the books (other than the stupid decision to make an extended rest into one night). They allow martial characters to behave as characters in an action movie, pulling themselves together and inspiring people to greater feats when they think they are done.
All at the low, low price of forcing people to change a common house rule (hit point damage is entirely physical) to a slightly different one (if hit point damage is purely physical then your total hit points are measured by your healing surges - having lost healing surges means that you are still injured even if you are ready for the next fight).
"Wander around towing a healbot with you" is, as far as I know, something that comes from D&D and wandered into the realm of Final Fantasy. And healing surges may change gameplay, but other than the overnight rest issue in my opinion every single way they change gameplay is for the better.