Nine Hands said:
Since most of the once per encounter abilities in SWSE are Force Powers (or Starship Maneuvers), you refresh all powers when you roll a 20 on a Use the Force check or Pilot roll. That is an in-battle recharge mechanic and it works VERY well.
I do like it but it shouldn't be the only way to recharge. Any recharge mechanic shouldn't depend on randomness.
Last night this was rather humerous in my group. I was playing a Crusader-- the only healer in the party. When combat was over, and people were still hurt, I would punch somebody (for subdual) to heal someone else! It was kinda funny with some volunteering to take a punch so I could heal them, while others got mad about it.
This is a great example of some of the issues inherent in the system. It should be assumed that outside of combat, per encounter power are essentially at-will powers.
Otherwise, you have silly situations like this. And if you say, "You shouldn't be able to use these powers outside of combat." Well, I find that a deeply unsatisfying answer that makes no logical sense.
If a character can do something such as heal an ally with a power in combat, they should be able to heal their allies freely outside of combat, rest a minute (assuming thats the only recharge mechanic) and then do it again. They also shouldn't have to use rules sophistry to do it either (e.g. punching an ally for subdual damage).
I have no problem with this, it simply allows the PCs to approach every encounter fresh. Something I believe the 4e designers specifically wanted to encourage in order to avoid the "15-minute" adventuring day.
We actually play this way now in my 3e games with some house rules, and it works out very well. Long before 4e was announced we realized that the 15 minute adventuring day problem was causing serious issues with our game, so we addressed it by coming up with a spell point system that allows casters to recover their points over time.
Half of my group are pretty serious powergamers too, but believe it or not we use our powergaming ability for good, rather than evil!

We like to play tough characters, but we also want a challenge, we don't like to walk over everything and we want to make it easier for the DM to challenge us, not harder.
But we also want rules that make logical sense and don't rely on an arbitrary metagame balancing mechanic that ruins suspension of disbelief. The notion that powers inexplicably become unavailable to reuse, or are inaccessible outside of combat is simply ridiculous.
I'm really excited about 4e, and I like 90% of what I'm hearing. I think Noonan, Mearls, Collins, Perkins, and company are all awesome designers, developers, and editors. I have confidence that they will put together a good game. But if per encounter powers aren't freely accessible outside of combat and don't provide a viable non-random refresh mechanic in combat, then to put it bluntly I consider that one area where they dropped the ball, and downright poor design.