Well friend, you're in for disappointment. Count on the New Basic Dungeons & Dragons game (NBDD?) being all about miniatures and grids.
I strongly believe that NBDD will be the gateway to get D&D Miniatures gamers and D&D Online game players into buying hardcover books.
Artwork is part of the package. Newbies need to know what a mace looks like, what armor looks like (sadly, they'll have to go off the horribly historically inaccurate renditions in the PHB).
I think the page count will be less than 100, but count on miniatures and grids. Count on it.
I anticipate the NBDD box will contain:
A battlemat
4 player-character miniatures (Tordek, Mialee, Jovan, Lidda)
12 monsters (a few orcs, some basic undead, an ogre, maybe some goblins, a wolf, and maybe a couple other animals)
Set of dice
Pamphlet for character creation (including stats, classes, races, feats, spells, and equipment).
Pamphlet with game rules (including combat, experience, vision rules, xp, and treasure)
Pamphlet with a sample adventure or two.
Cardboard terrain (either flat or simple punch-out cards to assemble buildings, doors, and such)
Character sheets (premade and blank).
I predict the rules pamphlet will be very similar to the existing D&D Miniatures skirmish game rules, if not identical. This will make it easy for D&D Minis gamers and Star Wars Minis gamers to pick up and play.
We'll see how it goes.
-z