Adept Speed is a very nice bonus, solid and useful. Gale Walk is a solid improvement. First, it actually utilizes adept speed, so its not wasted. Second, they are both working in the same niche....increasing my mobility.
This is actually really a good point. In particular I appreciate how the adept speed actually improves the following techniques, which I haven't noticed at first, but still I don't like it. It's a tax that makes all the sense in the world, but it's still a tax. I'm not sure about how fair will be this comparison, but I think that you can have these same situations for spells, while the progression isn't forced on the player.
A Sorcerer doesn't have to learn "Long jump" or "Levitate" in order to learn "Fly", while an Adept have to learn his version of "Long jump" in order to learn his version of "Fly", and to learn all of this he needs to learn to be faster.
A Sorcerer isn't forced to waste "Spells Known" to prove it's improving his control over the law of physics, while the Adept is forced to waste "Techniques Known" in order to prove his control over the law of physics.
I used the Sorcerer as a comparison because "Spells Known" are a limited resource like the "Techniques Known" are, but the example makes even more sense with a Wizard. A Wizard, conceptually, needs to learn and study the arcane, it isn't something that is born within itself, so it only makes sense that he should get progressively better at manipulating fire (Fire Bolt > Fire Ray), progressively better at enchanting minds (Charme > Charme Monsters), etc etc. Obviously the way magic works at the moment is right to me, no strange prerequisites all over the place except for levels, and I don't see why martials should work differently.
Anyways, Adept speed is not a huge issue to me. It's there, I roll my eyes every time I see it, but it's just a little thing across many more features the Adept have and gain, so I can go over it. On the other hand, the actual argument of this thread (which I feel like I was hijacking) looks like a Massive issue to me.
The Adept unlocks 3rd degree Maneouvers at level 8, but can't use them until level 10 unless it pay a feat as a Tax, the stars aligns or it prays Yog-Sothoth.
The Adept unlocks 5th degree Maneouvers at level 17, but can't use them until level 19 and this time it doesn't even have a feat to waste.
Yesterday night I had a game night with my friends and, talking with them about this, none of them could find this reasonable or acceptable. I wonder how many players, without the luxury to talk with the designer himself, are going to notice this and say "Oh, ok, it looks fine".