It is a huge issue to me that the concept of "core" has been expanded to mean something that comes out every year. I own a number of one book games I enjoy a lot. D&D 3.5 was already a three book game, and it was probably worth your while to buy another 3-4 books to flesh things out. Now 4e... good heavens, my collection will never be complete! We're not talking about one core book, or three core books, but three core books plus another two core books every year. Over five years, that would be thirteen core books!
Just for comparison, I can probably play all the WFRPG I'll ever want with one core book, one bestiary, and one gazeteer. I can play a fantasy RPG with the HERO core rulebook and nothing else, if I don't mind doing a little work... I can do it with very little work at all if I buy the HERO core rulebook, Fantasy Hero, the Turakian Age, the Grimoire, and the Bestiary, which is incidentally less books than it takes to get an equivalent experience from D&D. GURPS Characters + GURPS Campaigns plus either GURPS Banestorm or GURPS Fantasy is a smaller investment. D6 Fantasy is cheaper yet.
It's very much the same thing as was put in place for D&D Miniatures. I appreciate the economic realities of randomized miniatures. They are money in the pocket for WotC. However, I just don't want to have to buy a lot of boosters to get what I want. Even with a higher per miniature cost, I would prefer non-randomized miniatures for roleplay purposes. Most people would.... WotC acknowledges this, that is why they randomize, because the laws of reinforcement tell us that a behavior which is unpredictably reinforced becomes very persistent. You end up buying a bunch of minis you don't want/need, and you don't think a thing of it, even though overall you end up spending more on minis than you would have.
With 3.5, sure there were books like Complete Warrior that I didn't use a lot out of. But I had the choice to cherry pick. I gave Complete Scoundrel and Complete Champion a complete pass, because they just weren't good value.
Whatever they may add into the new core books, I know that some things are being removed. I don't mind getting extra, but I hate to lose what I already have. I know that to simply recreate the games I've played so far, which were mostly core material, I would have to buy the new core books and a number of expansions which haven't come out yet. Further, if there's anything in them that simply stinks, like most of the Book of Exalted Deeds or the Crusader, I can look forward to seeing it "supported" in official adventures, online articles, official campaigns, etc.
I have never in my life paid for an online subscription service. It just makes no sense to me. Text you can copyright, ideas you cannot, and the text you get with your subscription is probably not nearly as valuable as the ideas. There are really basic flaws in a business model which involves, not delivering content to customers, but withholding it from non-customers. That is why Web Support has always been popular but online zines unpopular, even though both ultimately add to the production costs of a product.
A monthly subscription is the polar opposite of what I want... when I buy gaming stuff, I am very selective. A monthly subcription would be like a monthly subscription to DDM booster packs, whether I need them or not, whether I'm playing a game that month or not, whether I like the current line of minis or not. Buying a monthly subscription basically says, "Please, mix some cow lips into my hamburger." It's not devious or evil or sneaky or anything. It's just the bald fact of a subscription service; content must be provided by the publisher, and the need for content will drive the quality more than the supply of it. Some months, what you get will frankly stink. You have no control over how much resources WotC devotes to the subscription product, and you can't reject it if you are unsatisfied with the previous month's output. You can only reject future product, but of course, you might actually want some of the future product.
In the long run, the best subscription content will be of interest to non-subscribers, so it's almost a given that eventually, the best stuff will see print anyway.
The new model of the D&D line is obviously "keep them wanting more." I don't want that. I want elegant, useful, complete.
