Great post Firebeetle, you hit pretty much everything that makes 4e a far superior gaming experience for me and my groups. I'll add a couple points I particilarly enjoy as well.
H. While magic items are still assumed to be a part of the game, they are not the core of the character's abilities like they were in 3.x. Gone are the days of the magic item Xmas trees! Now, the abilities and skills of the character are of the most importance, and while magic items are nice to have, they aren't necessary.
I. The new cosmology gets my brain going, and is far more compelling than the old one. I loves me some Shadowfell, Feywild, Astral Sea, Elemental Chaos, and Primordials!
J. 4e has a MUCH more solid framework to build on than 3e. The math works at all levels (we've played 1-7th, 15th, and 25th level adventures) without falling apart, and prepping and running high level games is EASY. I don't think WotC has even started to do some of the cool stuff the 4e system could handle- the next 5-7 years are going to be an exciting time!
K. I like that 4e focuses more on teamwork and mastery of PLAYING the game, rather than system mastery. I'd noticed this over the years of 3e, but it wasn't until someone earlier in the thread linked to a Monte Cook article saying they designed 3e to be a system mastery game that I realized the designers intentionall did this. IMO, thats horrible game design. While all games have some system mastery (even 4e), making it a core goal of game design seems like flawed reasoning, and counter to actually playing the game. Basically, this is saying that they designed the game to be fun for some people (rules lawyers), at the expense of others (more casual gamers, or ones that didn't get into system mastery). I know over the years I saw many new players take a look at the 3e books, and say "no thanks", or get frustrated when someone who put system mastery first made a PC that completely overshadowed their character. Thankfully, that reasoning is now gone.
L. 4e is new player friendly. In the entire run of 3e, I tried to recruit 9 new players- only one stuck with it, and he was really into number crunching. During the last six months, I've tried to recruit 4 new players, and ALL of them are sticking with it (and three of them are women who tried 3e and HATED it). The game is streamlined and easy to understand, without all the rules minutiae and baggage of 3e, but its still complex enough to allow for experienced players to be satisfied too. Thats a win/win situation!
M. Making monsters is a ton of fun. I like that monsters are not designed around the same principles PCs are. That means I can just design a monster how I want, and if I follow the guidelines, I can be 95% assured that it won't be over or under-powered, and will be a fun experience for the players. Compared to this, the whole CR/EL thing was a complete mess.
