I can see the arguments & complains against the chrome, but I love the design. I love being able to slide the new careers into a new binder so that I never have to remember which supplement the new career is referenced in. I love being able to add new wounds, actions, mutations, diseases, etc. into their respective decks. I may not use all of the components every session, but I like the overall component heavy design of the system. It's chrome heavy, and it's filling a certain market-niche that was absent in the hobby.

Fortunately for me, I have the table space and the disposable income that allows me to buy binders, card sleeve-sheets, and fiddly-bit organizers to manage the game.

There doesn't seem to be ANY signal from FFG that they will move away from the component heavy design of future WFRP products. Every thread to the contrary, including this one, is nothing but conjecture or sour apples that someone isn't catering to their product view. They put out the books as a one-time thing, and they specifically said they won't be doing it again. All future products will be card and component heavy.

I am not offended if others don't care for it and wish to return to v2, or play Burning Wheel, or Fiasco, or whatever. I suspect that as long as a market exists for chrome-heavy games, FFG won't be changing their design plans anytime soon. If it's not your cup of tea, fine, go find something that is. If FFG turns out to have made a blunder and the market evaporates, then that's the business risk they absorb.

The only things I need are more boxes for the stuff of the characters, I play with other five people and only 3 boxes are few.

Adding more players withoput having to get a whole new and very expensive core set is a right pain.

I disagree. I ran a demo with 6 using a single core set (plus some extra dice) and it worked fine. I regularly ran a game with 4 players, without any problems.

And woe betide the GM who's party decides to be 4 Trolls Slayers - that would be 4 sets if you wanted to give each their own set of cards.

Well, two things here. One... as a GM you really should discourage your players from all selecting the same career as a matter of course. It's boring. Two... if they insist, it really isn't very difficult to photocopy or scan the career cards, and print out additional ones onto card stock. Or, just have the players write the information down on some of the handy card-less character sheets (either from the player's guide, or there are a couple online). You *can*, in fact, use character sheets like other RPGs if you want. It won't be as convenient or pretty as using the card sheets, but it is doable. So, this is not really an issue.

With the arrival of the pen and paper guide versions storm clouds have well and truly gathered. Will 3E continue with the cards, or go down the pen and paper route?

A little digging on the forums and you can find the answer to this ... and I'm pretty sure a few posts ago I even answered this. FFG made the PnP Guides as a "one-off" and the communicated intent has been and will be (unless they make a post saying otherwise) to continue expansions in the original intent/design of cards and counters.