Well, after several months of actual play with 4e, I keep coming back to the same old refrain:It *PLAYS* a lot better than it READS, and this includes flexibility.
Survival horror: Maybe it's different at higher levels, but at heroic tier play (we just hit 5th level), Healing Surges are gold. It doesn't matter if you refresh your encounter powers after each little breather, those healing surges don't come back until you've had a good nap, and part of "survival horror" is that the chance for a nap doesn't come up very often.
Given that a lot of undead "eat" surges, and you can definitely do the "running out of steam/must find someplace safe" game. I understand that at paragon/epic tiers healing surges are less important, but you don't have demigods in a survival horror game, in general.
Non-combat: The main problem with the skill challenge system is that it's virtually a different game -- other than the small number of feats or powers which affect skills, there's no mechanical connection to the rest of the system. (And the connection which does exist is wonky -- since a SC is an "encounter", you can only use a skill-affecting encounter power once, even if if the SC covers hours of time and there's opportunities for 'short rests' during it.) However, if SCs are done well, with an eye towards encouraging roleplaying, they can provide a structured way to resolve out-of-combat encounters without relying on PLAYER skill (One of the issues with role-vs-roll play is, do you let the naturally charismatic person who has no social skills be the faceman because he acts it so well, or do you honor the asocial nebbish with a +20 in Diplomacy with success even when his attempt at winning the favor of the King is 'Yo, king-man! If we save your kingdom, I get to bang your hot wife, right?")
Last Sunday, a large chunk of game time was taken up with social maneuvering/information gathering at a 'coming out' party for a merchant's son. We were basically given a list of NPCs (about 8), and told we needed 12 successes before 6 failures, and which skills could be useful. We couldn't get more than 3 succeses from any one NPC, though. Diplomacy, Streetwise, and Perception (most of us are Trained in at least 2 of those 3) were the key skills, though we could use others if we needed to. We didn't just roll dice, though -- each 'interaction' consisted of description and a good bit of roleplaying -- a few back-and-forths, enough to set the tone and give us an idea of the NPCs personality, without it bogging down too much on any one encounter.
I think the 4e writers, whether by personal preference, editorial fiat, or limited page space, chose to severely downplay non-combat actions or campaigns which were not especially combat heavy. The 3e rulesbooks spent a lot of time on worldbuilding, NPC creation, and so on, and most of this CAN be done just as well in 4e -- but the designers chose to ignore or minimize the book space dedicated to it, giving the impression the game is meant to be played as nothing but a string of encounter set pieces taking place on virtual soundstage. While experienced gamers can use the 4e rules to tell as many stories as the 3e rules (with some tweaking, but had to tweak 3e for a lot of things, too), new gamers will probably not realize the potential exists, and that's a shame.
), but I'd like to have at least this. 
