TerraDave said:
er, some of us knew about it. (and we used it, and still didn't beat that damn dragon).
"Resource management", always part of D&D, has not gone away. But its changed.
If you keep adventuring: you can keep using at wills, healing surges, and per encounters, and maybe build up action points.
If you stop: you get your dailys, hit points, and healing surges back.
Decisions, decisions...
Without time constraints, I'm not sure I see the decision. I just don't see what WotC has done to discourage a party blasting through limited resources and then resting up for the day after only an encounter or two. They've made it much more feasible to continue adventuring after blasting through those resources, but there's no actual mechanical reason to continue on.
The action points were a good idea, in theory. The more you adventure, you more action points you get. Great. But you can only use one action point per encounter, and hey, if you take an extended rest, you're guaranteed to get an action point anyway, in addition to your full hit points and complete recharge of your dailies and healing surges.
I think the hope is that the increased feasibility provided by the per-encounters and at-wills will make it easier for parties to follow the honor system in not setting up camp for the day after an adventure or two, but like I said, mechanically, I don't see the decision to be made.
edit: I think a good idea might have been to provide some bonus XP after a certain encounter, maybe the sixth encounter the party completed that day, with the idea that such a good day of adventuring provided a bit of boost to their skill, sort of like getting in a good, long workout. The bonus XP wouldn't have to be much, maybe 1/4-1/2 of a typical encounter.
Now, something like that would actually create a decision among the party. Do they pack up early and take an extended rest to get some of their more powerful resources back, or do they press on and try and get in a fuller day of adventuring, which would provide a small bonus to their skill? I would have liked to have seen WotC try something like that.