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I am more than willing to spend a few extra moments of time to gain some amount of consistency.

I, as a DM, am interested in having an internally-consistent setting, which is achieved - at least partially - by having a consistent ruleset. Requiring adjudications from me opens room for that internal consistency to be put into jeopardy, because I may not always be consistent in my rulings or...

Fire is an easy one. There are certainly more difficult things to adjudicate, and adjudications take time if you want to (1) try to make sure that your adjudication is reasonable and (2) want to keep track of your adjudications so that the same effects (lighting things on fire with fireball) has...

Which is it's own - but different - problem. I imagine it is.

How much fire damage can these items take before they are useless? How resistant to it are they? Does this burning cause other things in the room to set on fire? Do things that aren't immediately combustible take fire damage, and if so, how much? Do they continue to burn, and if so, how long...

Really? 'cause last I checked, not all 3e spells were combat-related. I would be interested in this, as well.

I like how the 4e cloud screams "If it's not combat-related, it doesn't matter."

Not everyone plays the game like you.

Which ones are useful out of it? Not nearly as many as those useful either in combat or having a direct impact upon a combat. The support for non-combat activity in 4e is such that it might as well be only about combat.

Awesome, so all characters can use all skills that are really only useful in combat. Doesn't change the fact that the scope of 4e is heavily combat-centric. And "useful" skills is relative. There are numerous skills cut in the 3e => 4e transition that some folks found useful.

The skill challenge system is an after-thought. Compare the amount of work that went into the combat system with how much went into skill challenges. Skill challenges reek of "Oh, I guess we should put this in..."

The amount of content the system provides for a particular aspect of play informs the way the game is played. 95% of the game is well-balanced combat engine. 5% is poorly-written, badly-designed generic mechanic for dealing with everything not-combat. Sorry, but calling upon the skill...

I'd be down with "talents." "Manifestation" is just too much, IMO.

Maybe for psionics they'll go old-school and pull out "discipline" or "devotion" or "science." Less of a mouthful than "manifestation," at any rate.

Karateka is what I use.

I think it greatly depends upon the social contract you're working with. For some groups - mine included - the rules are an abstract representation of how the in-game world works. For these groups, the sorts of things you see in OotS are not unreasonable: take away the obviously metagame...

This might help you get started. It might not have quite the flavor you're looking for, but I imagine it would be helpful for what you want to do.

I see what you did there. Wasn't it mentioned, at some point, that WotC was trying to divide the 3.5 druid into two 4e classes, making wildshape the focus of one class and nature-y spellcasting the focus of another? Or am I just imagining things?

The number of things one can learn from gaming is probably nigh-innumerable. Social skills. Mathematics. Understanding complex systems. Cause and effect. That's just to name a few. I'm sure others could add more. Gaming is an amazing educational tool, and it does not even need to set out with...

Why do I bother responding to you?