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I have not yet tried D&D with my kids (5 and 6) although they really enjoy Castle Ravenloft. The board game is great for the kids because it has very easy attack powers (one d20 roll, one simple result), simple characters options each turn (move/move or move/attack), and simple monster tactics. So, I guess my answer to "what should D&D Next have for my young kids" is this: make the player options very simple with very simple outcomes.

Note: We started with Heroes of Hesoid then switched to Castle Ravenloft as soon as it was out.   

I could not agree more. The rules heavy game, (at least the way it was played at our local gaming store the other night), played like I was taking my son to an H&R Block tax seminar. We all wound up dead and my son sat there rolling death saves for 20 minutes while playing with his dice. A rules light and story heavy game is the way we'd like to play. It's easy enough to do this by altering the rules ourselves but since my son would like to get more friends into the game a simpler rules set for kids who do not want to spend their free time with slow plodding combat rules would be nice. Also this would allow kids to get it quickly rather then everyone needing to type up "house rules" for simple games. D&D needs to make their own simple set of "HOUSE RULES" that can be used by anyone at any level of game play. There should be a much easier form of combat where everyone just calls out what they do, roll the dice all at once, and highest roll hits then rolls for damage. As it is now it's painfully slow and with all the modifiers, posibilites, surges, once a day, powers, etc, it is maddening to quickly figure out what to do. Also a form of the game with a character sheet that is more representational of a character and less like a tax form would be nice. Many adults forget that writing up and rolling a quick character and then spending an hour at home drawing a picture of the character you created is the way D&D started our for many of us. More hit points at first level too, as well as more GP to spend. A character death should be about the rarest thing ever in D&D, at least for the simple rules set. Sure there would be threats and through crazy reckless choices death could come eventually but this should be out of the norm. The DM at our local shop killed all of us, newbies and pros, two weeks in a row. I'm sure it was out of the norm but he seemed to be playing against us which is what the books say the DM should not be doing. Anyway, my own basement will always be the best place to play as we like. I was just hoping to get involved with a larger group of people. I had no idea it was going to be so clinical.

My son too is very much into video games but he also likes Heroclix which he got into all on his own. I have no idea how to play that but it seems more strategic than the D&D I remember. I though D&D4e was different but aparently it is also very much a strategic game. I dont think that should be eliminated and I completely uderstand why people might like to play it that way. D&D seems so open to me that it would be a shame if that was the only way it was officially instructed to be played though. 

We alrerady both grasp how to play 4e but we just did not respond well to the slow combat. The only problem we encountered was our lack of the vast knowledge of all the races and classes and being able to quickly recall stats and posibilities info from our character sheets. I'm sure if our characters live, eventually, we will learn to know all the stats backwards and forwards. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed for a simpler more open ended—everybody rolling dice at once—type of gameplay that is heavy on the storytelling from the DM and heavy on the exploring from the players. There was very little of both with the group we played with.

We just need to get in with, or form, the right group for the way we want to play.

Just the last few weeks. I've had my head in a D&D book the entire time.  I also played, with zero actual rules, as a kid back in the 80s.

BTW... I'm gonna take a look at that Savage Worlds game. It might be just what we need.