Mmm. Allow me to state why I - and, I assume, the others who agree with me - find the idea of a drastically changed Dark Sun to be so distasteful.
It's not because of the "purity of the setting." It's because of what becomes the new baseline. If I talk about Dark Sun, others around me will not think about the old version, they will think of the 4e version - with all the changes that come with it. It's the same tiefling problem. When I talk about tieflings in god knows what has to be the nerdiest conversations imaginable, and start talking about outsiders, I get blank looks. A while back, there was a thread where someone mentioned that Paizo was having difficulties finding an artist to draw a tiefling, as all the ones that responded did 4e styled ones.
That's why I'm so..."displeased" with the idea of a drastically changed Dark Sun. Because, quite frankly, yes. A new Dark Sun would prevent me from potentially playing an old one.
I'm sorry, but that argument is a bit flawed. Minor changes to the setting do not really change anything that's come before, or will come later. Just because there (may) be Tieflings in 4e DS, doesn't mean that when you get together to play 2e Dark Sun, they're going to be there because the DM happened to play 4e DS first and feels they should be there. Or, if 5e DS comes out, that they'll necessarily be there.
So long as the fundamentals of the setting remain (it's a desert, it's bleak, defiling exists, there are no gods, there are few planes, city-states, bugs and reptile monsters instead of mammals, etc...), it will be roughly the same experience.
Or, to put it another way, the revised Dark Sun setting made a hell of a lot more changes to original Dark Sun than the 4e Dark Sun will be making to the same original base line. The revised setting put in a greening process, killed off a lot of sorcerer kings (and made many more city-states basically barred from play), added races, and more. Does that mean that when people only play the revised setting, that they cannot play original Dark Sun? Does it mean that you are unable to run an Original Dark Sun adventure?
No, of course not. You can, and have been able to for fifteen odd years. If someone is only familiar with the revised Dark Sun, they can still play (and get the fundamentals you describe) - all you need to do is say "hey, you can't be an Aarokocra or Pterran, and the city-states are crazy messed up".
Or, to flip it, if you join a guy who is running revised 2e Dark Sun, and you're used to Original boxed set, you'll still feel like you're playing Dark Sun. Sure, Rhul-Thaun life-shaped artifacts might be a bit weird, and those piecemeal armour rules might seem odd... not to mention the new Psionics rules... but in the end, you're still going to be playing more or less the same game.
My point here is, the designers of 4e have already said they're basing things off the original boxed set. The blog post seems to suggest they're even lifting text straight from the Wanderer's Chronicle (which I'm all for). Even if they add in some minor tweaks like primordials, tieflings, dragonborn, small mountain ranges, justifiable silt sea, and the like, they won't be changing the setting any more than TSR did with the revised setting years ago.
Finally, you mention the 4e Eberron book was good. I agree. But I'm a bit confused... because the 4e Eberron book introduced more than a few changes to the setting - it added Tieflings and Dragonborn, for starters. And didn't it change the scale of the setting? And how Artificers work?
The point is, they made some changes to the setting to fit the new rules... and the sky didn't fall. Hell, you liked it.
For the record, I'm not saying the 4e Designers are going to make a perfect product. I honestly believe they're going to screw at least a few things up. But I have faith in what they release. Hell, even if they release a load of crap - a setting with metal weapons, non-cannibal halflings, planar Tieflings, Desert Devils, and Gods - it's going to be good. Because it will renew interest in a setting that has otherwise been dead for over ten years now. Meaning, even the worst possible product released will ultimately be a good thing for Dark Sun.
