DragonBelow -
There are quite a few fanboys out there that will buy up anything that WotC drops from its butt and call it a diamond. I believe however, the bulk of those folks inhabit the WotC boards more frequently than ENworld. WotC is going to make money, but the artwork is more of a personal thing than a must make it new thing. I actually know one of the artists working on the new edition (though I have not seen any of her work on it (NDA stuff you know)). She has a style that is her own, it isn't Easley it isn't Elmore and it isn't Lockwood.
More often than not, it's the artists personal style that alters the artwork and then the art editor sees this fresh perspective and goes - WOW! Now that's original and sticks it in the the book proposal. The company as a whole
very rarely (notice I didn't say never) dictates a new style just for the sake of it, however, once that style is chosen, you can best believe they are going to support it until someone decides it isn't working.
Have you seen the new armored beholder? More than an amorphous flesh ball with eye stalks, it has armor plating and a look that screams pain. I have no idea whose concept that was, but I can guarantee that if I were the art editor, I would have chosen that one too.
Change is good, most of the time, but as far as your old minis are useless, I have yet to see that kind of sweeping statement from any official source, for that matter, D&D minis has very few banned minis from any release as far as tournaments go, a far cry from M:tG with decks worth of banned material. I think overall this is really a non-issue, but I fear there will be the "Uber - WotC - geeks" that will say exactly what your fearful first posts suggest. Oh well, ignore them and maybe they'll go away.
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