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Total wild speculation, and almost certainly wrong, (even I don't actually think this is what's going on but it'd make ME really happy), what if the delay is because they're building a whole new CB?

The CB is nice, but honestly the program is really really clunky. It's a resource hog, the XML it creates is sloppy, the UI is... iffy at best in my book, and it was made in such a way as to be very very difficult to port to other platforms. (I understand the likely reasons they made it the way they did initially, and they were probably decent choices at the time, but as a most of the time Mac user it doesn't make me too happy to have to boot into Windows just to use it).

 This might also explain the delays to the compendium etc.  Perhaps the new CB uses a different database, or the database has to be adjusted to work with it?  I don't know.  This is about the only scenario I can think of that puts some sort of positive spin on the current debacle.

None of this, even if it were true (and it almost surely is not),  excuses the silence we've gotten from WoTC regarding all of this (and that we usually get whenever anything like this happens).  Personally, the occasional, late, mention on the forums that something is delayed is just not enough for me.  I only occasionally check the forums, an e-mail would be great, but so would something on the page for the tools.  

I'm not quite ready to cancel my subscription yet, as I still enjoy the magazines, and I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I am getting more and more annoyed.  Every time there is a problem and we don't get any straight answers, and there is no effort to volunteer information as it is happening, I get a little more annoyed and consider whether I really want to keep paying for this.

I have to say I'm amazed that it looks like I actually might have been right! We don't know what the new "web tools platform" will be, or what but... I kind of sounds like it's at least possible they are in fact working on a new character builder that's online! (Personally I like this idea and think it's how it should have been from the start).

That's fine. You can't please everyone.  But personally as a Mac user and someone who has found the existing character builder to be a clunky, slow, resource hog with a mediocre at best UI I'm happy to see them try something new.  No need to get into that discussion here though.  There's enough nerdrage in the official thread.

Edited to add: Additionally, we don't even know if that's actually what they're doing. 

That is for sure.  I think we can all agree that the lack of communication from WoTC is a problem, whatever you think of the (maybe) new idea.

The good news though is it will be soon.