Don't get me wrong, the core set--especially at the Amazon price--was great value; but I think WotC pulled a bit of a fast one when they split the FRCS into two books, when one book with smaller text would have been dandy. $70 list for both? Why not $50 for one big book? Seeing that I'd only be mining the book for ideas, I couldn't bring myself to even spend the Amazon $18 on the Player's Guide.
They're only putting out 3:
Setting DM Book (Monsters)
Setting PC book (Feats, Classes, Rituals/Powers, Paragon Paths)
Setting Adventure.
Compare that to $20-30 a-piece for:
The Setting Core Book
3-6 Setting Area Books
The Setting Magic Book
The Setting Religion Book
The Setting Monster Book
The Setting Good Guy Book
The Setting Villain Book
The Setting Ancient Periods/Lost Stuff Book
1-3 Setting Adventures
And it's the 4e books trying to milk your money?
Besides, I must confess that for all the
words in the 3e books, I didn't have a lot of use for the content. There wasn't all that much there
for me. On the other hand, I think I'd get a whole lot more use out of the Adventurer's Vault, or the Swordmage/Genasi/Paragon Paths.
All of the above having PrCs, Feats, Magical Items, Spells, and Monsters in them.
This is why I appreciate
all of the player info being sequestered into one book compared to having to shuffle through five different books because I have a feat from this one, a feat from that one, two spells from two different books, and a magical item out of the fifth book. So I might be paying for less page count, but
organization well than makes up for it.