I'm going to keep this short and sweet without trying to tread over the dead squigs that have been stomped upon many times. However if one or two of the little buggers gets crushed, my apologies.
Like many people here I am a fan of WHFRPG, and I am seriously not sure about this new edition. I outright refuse to join the gloom and doom bandwagon. I think that riding on it, especially when we all don't really know what we have coming is pretty **** pointless. For god-sakes take the time to see the product for yourself before you scream "it's crap", "it sucks", "it's not a RPG", "FFG has abandoned us", and all that other rot. Please use your heads instead of freaking the @*1*# out. It's this attitude that kills games and folks, quite frankly I don't want to see WHRPG die. I can accept change, but death is right out.
That said, I will not be casting any judgement on the new rules system until I see it for myself. Who knows, it might actually be fun. We barely know anything about it, so I look at it as a new experience. The truth is that the way things have been with the 2nd edition line, the game does beg for a reprint/new edition. In many respects I am happy that they are finally going about doing this. However I am not entirely happy with the direction they are taking with the game.
I personally think it would have been a better and sensable direction and follow the successful 40K RPG model, and keep the overall system the same. The problem with WHFRPG 2 was that overall it was good. It's a good system, a good game, it has good writing and a good setting. However it's weakness lay in the fact that everything involved in the game was spread out and begged to be condensed. Not ommitted, not changed, not re-written, but condensed, and then expanded upon. Especially in regards to material that was lost in the transfer from Black Industries, stuff that remained only in manuscript, and material that was really needed to be written for the game.
However FFG seems to have chosen to go with a route intended on competing directly with D&D 4, using many new concepts, and similar lines in relation to D&D4 to gain interest. In the long run it may work. Then again it may be a big flop. WHFRPG as it stands is a good alternative, and doesn't need to be more like D&D. That's one of the cool things about the game. However what's done is done and there is nothing that can be done unless FFG wills it. The new system may turn out to be fun and a good time, and if it is, and it is supported well, then all this talk and complaint is moot.
There is one thing FFG could do to help make things better and help reduce the senseless "poison spitting" in the community. Offer the rulebooks/cards/dice in the game as a stand alone products for people to buy. I have to agree with the majority of people here, a $100 boxed game does not fly. The truth is the economy is bad, and people can't drop lots of cash in a visit to the game store. Even if things were better, most people would be hard pressed to buy a $100 game. $60 for a hardcover rulebook is pushing the limits, but it's understandable. $100 is still a lot of money for most of us. Cutting a break on things will help the community better accept the new edition.
That's it from my end. The only thing I have to say at this point is a plee to FFG that when the time comes around, don't do this sort of change to the 40k line of games. Please leave them alone as is as a whole (save for logical progression). They are good as they stand.