Li Shenron said:
Except that we have the majority of the crowd that even wants the druid folded into the cleric as a talent tree...
Was there a poll on this that I missed?
WOTC is aiming at making classes distinct. In order to do this, they need to dial back the absurdly huge spell lists of the existing core classes. I think we saw the beginnings of this in the warmage, beguiler, dread necromancer, healer, etc. Remember, they said they were carving up the wizard's bag of tricks to allow for arcane caster expansion (illusionist I think was an example given).
Clerics, as a divine leader, will likely be based around buffing, healing and smiting. It would be easy to differentialte the caster druid's spell list. Debuffing, battlefield control, and some healing. Truning people into squirrels, summoning distracing swarms of insects, binding someone with plants, creating slippery mud on the ground, walls of stone, gusts of wind, etc. All very cster "druid-y", all controlling.