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LEVEL--1-30
Having more levels should mean you level more often, which gives you that cool "ooh I leveled!" feeling more often. Personally my campaigns will last the same amount of time either way, so if the players get more chances to have that cool feeling and get new crunch to play with, sounds good to me.

POWERS--Good
I'm kinda torn on this one, as I really do understand the argument against powers, but when it comes down to it, I like the idea. I think it needs a lot of work, but it's the right sort of track to take, because it means you can give interesting options to every class in a defined system. Powers for different classes/power sources should work very differently(things like how psionics in 4e is very different), however, to avoid the somewhat homogenized classes of PHB1.

VANCIAN SYSTEM--Bad
The Vancian casting system as a whole never really made sense to me. Pretty much any other casting system I think would be better. I did like having the slight nod to it with 4e Wizards having spellbooks, but the full system itself is something I'm glad to see gone.

CLASS ROLES--Good
The classes of every edition have had roles whether they were pointed out or not, and actively pointing them out is helpful to new players. Should there be classes that can switch roles, sub certain roles and main certain roles, or have options that blur the lines a bit? Absolutely. But trying to take them away entirely is a poor idea, because at its core it would make every class jack-of-all-being terrible at everything.

MAGIC ITEMS HAVE TO BE MECHANICALLY...--Important
Apparently(unless the first post hasn't been updated) I'm the only one that thinks this. Now, don't get me wrong, I think the inclusion of alternate rewards instead of magic items/inherent bonuses/etc is a great idea. But this is D&D, and I want my +5 flaming sword. If there could be an alternate system where things were totally balanced around having none of these bonuses at all(so a compensatory thing like inherent bonuses wasn't necessary), that'd be fine, but it'd be a lot of additional work compared to something like inherent bonuses, and if there has to be a default, I prefer my +whatever items. I do like that they toned it down to just the three slots in 4e, though. Not EVERYTHING has to be a +X.

ABILITY SCORES--Good
99% of the tabletop RPGs I've seen has these in some form, and for good reason. They work really, really well.

A LOT OF CLASSES--Bad(?)
I suppose this depends on what you define as "a lot". I don't want 37 classes in my game. I do, however, want PHB1 to have 8-10ish classes in it. My main reasoning for this is that if you keep adding classes, it becomes hard for people to keep up with it. Adding additional variants to existing classes is easier to work with and means new content will have some existing basis in the game. Certain concepts can't really be done right with existing classes, I know, so sometimes you have to add new ones. I'd just prefer it be limited. Heroes of the Feywild is a brilliant example of this, IMO: 4 fun new class ideas that are all variants of existing classes.

A LOT OF RACES--Bad(?)
Again, depends on what constitutes "a lot". Like with classes, I'd like to see 8-10ish races in PHB1. Also, I don't want to quash options in this area, but I want to races to have a real, significant impact. The more different races you add, the harder this becomes to accomplish. I love things like racial feats, racial utility powers, racial paragon paths, and the like, but not every 4e race was created equal with these things. I'd rather have fewer races that were better supported than more races. I'm all for having a "for players" section on vaguely playable monster races in monster manuals, perhaps with Dragon magazine support later to flesh them out more, however.

ABILITY SCORES FOR RACES--Yes
If the big, burly race has the exact same range of strength scores as the halflings, that makes no sense. The way 4e did ability scores for races(one primary +2 and one either/or +2) was great, I see no reason to change it.

FEATS(AND OTHER OPTIONS) THAT GIVE YOU STATIC +X BONUSES--Bad
The main source of feat tax, power creep, and old material becoming worthless in general is feats that have a +X. I'd rather feats gave me cool new options or changed the way some of my abilities work somehow instead of just a +X.

HIT POINTS--Good
Please, please, PLEASE have the rules explicitly stress that hit points are an abstract system, not a literal record of how wounded you are. For a heroic fantasy game, this abstract record of how much fighting capacity you have left works great, as opposed to a more specific system of injuries and wound levels and such. I also do love the bloodied mechanic, so please keep that as well.

HEALING SURGES--Good
I like the overall concept of healing surges, as to me they represent your overall capacity for exertion and toughness for a period of adventuring--while you might be momentarily overwhelmed(your hit points hit zero), you can bounce back and keep fighting because the wounds aren't overall that bad, because you have surges left. Everyone has limits, though, and you reach those limits when your surges run out. The idea of second winds and nonmagical healing sort of keys off of this idea too, so I like that as well.

DEFENSES--As AC
This is kind of a sacred cow, but it's one I like. It also cuts down on the number of rolls per attack, and removes the disappointing "You hit! ...and deal no damage" from the majority of combats, since it only comes up with things that resist specific damage types now. I would be totally ok with a scaling system of getting a bonus to damage related to how much you beat the defense by, however. It is kinda lame to roll a super high attack roll and then brick your damage.

SKILL CHALLENGES--Good
One of the best parts of 4e, though the mechanics need serious work--I've somewhat kludged together my own system for figuring out DCs and numbers of successes and failures, and it works pretty well. The basic idea I've kept intact, however. While I don't think we need mechanics for everything that isn't combat, it helps define the game as more than just a combat game and lets mechanics come into play in noncombat situations, which is something I like. Yes, you should roleplay through your tense negotiation with the Baron(or what have you), but shouldn't your character's actual abilities matter too? That's why you took Diplomacy, isn't it? When you've rolled a few skill checks over the course of such a scene, you've basically just done a skill challenge. Why not codify the rules for it a little more?

SKILLS HAVE TO BE--Important
See above rant. If skills aren't important to the game, why even have them?

NORMAL CHANCE TO HIT--50% as now
50% is fine. As long as big awesome things like Daily powers have things like reliable and "on-miss" conditions, 50% doesn't bother me. If you hit too often, you need to give opponents more HP to compensate, and this makes combat drag on when people start getting unlucky on damage or hit rolls. Also, hitting too often becomes too powerful when hits have rider conditions like dazed or immobilized. Missing does suck, but as long as defenses are balanced so appropriate level encounters see hit rates of about 40-60% and not 5-95% like it seems to be now, I don't see the problem.

ALIGNMENT IS--Mechanical
Truth be told, I think alignment is both mechanical and fluff. I say mechanical because there's one key thing about alignment mechanics I want--holy, unholy, axiomatic, and anarchic effects. I loved having certain things like that affect people differently because of alignment. Alignment should not, however, restrict things like class choice(let my Paladins go!). It should also not be a straitjacket defining your character--you define how the character acts, and THAT determines his alignment, not the other way around. Of course, DMs need to be watchful for characters acting out to change their alignment for their own benefit, but any DM worth their salt should be able to do that just fine.

Oh, and bring back the 9-alignment grid! The new alignment system in 4e sucks something awful, and it was the very first thing I houseruled away.

SAVE OR DIE--Bad
A single, isolated unlucky roll shouldn't immediately screw your character. That's really hard on the player and just as hard on the DM, as now he has to contrive a way for the PC to get out of death or whatever other equally impossible predicament it is, or figure out how to introduce a new character into his ongoing story. Giving players more chances to avoid these horrible fates is a better idea. Will people still die(or the like) and have to deal with the aforementioned consequences? Yeah, they will. But this makes it less common, and less frustrating.

        Level

• 1-20 or 1-30, I don't really care, just support ALL of them.
• powers
  good
• vancian system
  very bad 
• Class roles
  bad
• magic items has to be mechanically 
  shouldn't be mandatory at all. They should be really cool and rare only in basic rules (can differ for particular settings).
• abilities scores
   Yes
• a lot of classes
  No. I prefer few classes and many sub-classes.
• a lot of races
  Good, I like variety.
• ability scores for races
  good
• feats (and other options) that gives you static +x bonuses
  bad 
• hit points
  good 
• healing surges
  bad
• defenses
  as AC
• skill challenges
• skills has to be
   important, especially with ability scores hopefully gone
• normal chance to hit
  50%
• Alignment Is
  Fluff that needs to be replaced with some suggestions on to how to actually play a character, not some weird abstract concept.
• Save or Die
  Bad in general, but some exceptions are accepteble.