Well, since the thread resurfaced, I may as well answer the comments directed at me. I'd originally intended to just vent some steam, and didn't think anyone would really take notice of what I was saying. In hindsight, I wish I had waited until I was less tired and more rational before posting, because what's there really is a knee-jerk reaction given very little thought after a long night at work...
If you aren't playing D&D (ie a WotC product) why on earth would you expect a core book supplement from WotC to be of any use to you? That really baffles me.
My wording may have overstated the differences between what I run and D&D. Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved is not so far from D&D core that you can't use most monster books designed for D&D or generic d20/OGL products, and it in fact, uses the DMG as it's "standard" GM book. The only major issue between the systems is spell-like abilities or creatures that cast as a given D&D spellcasting class of level x, because there may not have an AE equivalent to all of the D&D spells (although the SRD is pretty much covered at this point). I regularly use other D20 systems' monster books (MM1-3, Creature Collection 1, and Tome of Horrors ) for my Arcana Evolved campaign, and generally it's not that big a deal to convert things. Given my past experience with using core D&D material comfortably alongside AE and other d20 material, I'd hoped things would not become less compatible as time went on.
I think the key thing about my previous post is that I was being whiney, and I admit it. In the grand scheme of things, it only makes sense for WotC to integrate their line a bit more and cross-promote things between books ("Hey, this ninja drow kicked butt, I think I'll go buy Complete Adventurer so I can use the full class!"), but I'd been spoiled by the lack of such promotion in the first three MMs. The first three seemed to stand alone alongside the SRD, with few if any references to other splatbooks, and I enjoyed that ease of use and portability. For that matter, most of the monsters were very setting-generic, easily plunked down into the Diamond Throne, Iron Kingdoms, Azeroth, or any other d20 setting or Homebrew. MMIV however is also saddled with the Dragonspawn, who are intimately tied with the idea of Tiamat and Bahamut's conflict. Running a setting without those two interfering overdeities? Well, that's 2-3 pages of fluff backstory that you'll have to toss out per dragonspawn...quite a hefty chunk of the book when you get down to it.
Also, I know that everything you need to run the creature and it's class abilities is in the book, but there's just something that bothers me about running a monster like that. I guess it's because I've always felt that as a GM, I shouldn't use classes (base or prestige) that I don't also offer my PCs. Sure I could run the Yuan-Ti cult leader and just say "there's no difference between it getting Marshal levels and it's having constrict and a poison bite attack, which the PCs also happen to not have access to", but there's just something about it that bothers me about brown-book "Player Content" being usable by the DM to enhance a monster and not being available to the PCs. Maybe it's a purely psychological hangup I have about it...I mean, I briefly considered including the Marshal on the list of D&D 3.5 classes I allow in my AE game, and I own Complete Adventurer, so it wouldn't be a huge deal to make use of the classes...but something just doesn't feel right.
In general, I just sorta wish that the monster manuals were stand-alone, unique material. New creatures we hadn't heard of, with compelling art and mechanics, and some suggestions on ecology and it's place in the world that might inspire memorable encounters. MM2 and 3 did a great job of this, but MM4 just seems like too little new material and too much old material with added window-dressing. Don't get me wrong, I actually kinda like Balhannoth, Lodestone Marauder, Varag, and Zern, but there is just too little of that content amid the MM1 stuff with class levels and the Dragonspawn's flavortext for me to consider MM4 a good buy at it's page count and price point.
