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If we make feats and skills part of the core, we can then create a  fairly simple rules module for old school D&D play. These rules not  only would remove feats and skills, but they would also explicitly push  the game toward DM rulings rather than hard and fast rules. This sort of  rules module would use the same DM guidelines for adventure design. The  idea would be that player skill—knowing where to look for traps,  learning a monster’s weaknesses, making smart strategic decisions—takes  the place of the mechanical advantages offered by skills and feats. In  some ways, it’s like playing D&D in hard mode.

As long as the "old school" rules are not the basis for the game, there is no problem. Your basic rules need to be an easy to learn, easy to use in widely different situations, medium ground. "Less rules" is better as an option, for those who like to (or simply, can ) play that way, than as the main course of the product.

Also : insisting on guidelines, for the DM on how to modify the difficulty of a task, and how to provide bonuses for "rp" or "player thinking" can have the same results. If the DM is liberal with giving bonuses for good ideas or "out of the box thinking", he can also make rolls harder, encouraging players to "improvise" new ways sa they can gain a much needed "rp" bonus...

In some ways, you can think of this process as akin to character  creation for the DM. The DM decides what kind of campaign he wants to  run, in terms of tone, world elements and so forth, and then picks out  options or rules modules that match that tone. The campaign setting  becomes as much of a character in the rules as any NPC, location, or  event.

Danger ! D&D is often used as a "changing teams" game. Players go from one table to aother, keeping their character, DM often have players come and go, etc. Not all teams/tables work this way, but it is not a rare thing. Having each DM or campaign work differently reduces the possibility of "cross playing" - each campaigns becomes more "closed", each character more "specialized" for one kind of campaig only.
It can be frustrating for many players/DMs, and lead to big problems of balance, especially for the less experienced players and DMs. And in fact, can be commercially counterproductive.
Take care of not making each campaign/table/whatever so "houseruled" by  modules that exchanges between players/Dms/etc become too problematic.

A word of caution about randomness - I don't think random tables should be back in any way, especially if they try to correct power by rarity. It never worked as a way to balance, it just encourages players and DMs to cheat their rolls ( remember Stormbringer random class and races selection ? 1% chance to be an overpowered Melnibonean = 5 Melniboneans at the table. Even if it means rolling 200 characters and chosing the best one. Or, In AD&D : psionics were so rare that too many characters had them. Or let's roll characters untill we have one with good abilities).

Another remark about modularity : the thinner the granularity (the more specialized modules there are) the less customers will be interested in a given module, leading to many products with few sale prospects. It seems to encourage the monthly fee digital approach, rather than the publication of books. It can be a problem with some potential customers.

If we make feats and skills part of the core, we can then create a  fairly simple rules module for old school D&D play. These rules not  only would remove feats and skills, but they would also explicitly push  the game toward DM rulings rather than hard and fast rules. This sort of  rules module would use the same DM guidelines for adventure design. The  idea would be that player skill—knowing where to look for traps,  learning a monster’s weaknesses, making smart strategic decisions—takes  the place of the mechanical advantages offered by skills and feats. In  some ways, it’s like playing D&D in hard mode.

I love how easily he puts out everything I want to see in a single paragraph. And the taunting... oh, the taunting. Perfect Mr. Mearls. Thank you. You want skills and feats? Pansy. We're playing hard mode. You want to solve the mystery, you figure it out. No namby pampy "skill challenges" here. Step up... if you dare.

All this talk in L&L sidesteps the idea of making a strong core mechanic that is both simple and versatile. 

What disturbs me a bit (besides what I made comment on in the main page) is the idea that for entry level you need a "simple" method of X, and then for added complexity you need X+Y.  That is a fallacy of design.

What the core needs is the capability of supporting X+Y+Z+ greek letters.  The core mechanics need to be able to stand alone in versatility, and what I'm not seeing is how that will benefit in this hypothetical new edition.

Example:  Fighter sub builds.  (this is not a commetn on good or bad or whatever)
The weapon master, brawling fighter, et al revolved around a core fighter mechanic.  Mark Plus class feature.  Had no problems.  But then the slayer comes along.  Not a bad thing, but it goes to show that the idea of a fighter that is not a defender is not supported in the core mechanic.

And imporvement in a new edition would be a fighter, and your 2 basic choices in the core could be "striker" or "defender." And for basic "powers" you could choose between "power strike" and "distracting strike"  Then as complexity increases you can add feats onto this.  more power options etc.

this is a small issue, but one that can greatly simplify design while increasing versatility and I'm not seeing an improvement over what we have yet.

Also, Archetypes/pregens included in the core material.  say 8 Pregenerated characters at level 1, each occupying a page with a decent illustration for them.  This way, for players that want to jump right into action they have a premade character.  The classes can be designed with more choice off the get go w/o sacrificing the jump in and play atmosphere.  Tons and tons of RPG's use this idea and I think for the player that just wants to play it works out just fine.

Maybe I'm alone here but that's where I'm coming from.