jioan:
-The Monster Manual is supposed to make it easier for DMs but I found it much harder to create variety. There are not base creatures but instead very specific entries many of which don't follow the same rules as PCs and use recharge rules and such. Minions make no sense and the other monsters all have a huge number of hitpoints causing combat to drag on forever. This isn't a problem for players generally but as a DM I felt as if my intelligence and abilities were insulted.
I don't DM, so I can't argue with you on this point.
jioan:
-There are really only 4 classes.(Controller, Defender, Leader, and Striker.) The actual classes are simply slight variations on these roles. Their combat abilities almost all degenerate to a formula (YdX + Z dmg vs Static Defense(AC, Ref, Will, Fort)). This makes combat boring and uncreative especially now since class specific systems have been replaced with encounter, daily, and at-will. Combat turns into everyone using their encounter powers and then smacking the enemy with at-wills while debating whether to use dailies or not.
While I can't deny that there are four character types, and that battles will invariably break down as you say, I think that the variation within classes really is significant. For example, the epic-level game I'm in. My character is a Monk (Striker) which is good at infighting, doing damage reliably in smallish amounts, moving around the field, and hitting multiple creatures at once. Our other Striker character is a Rogue, a character with a specialty in ranged attacks, unreliable but very high amounts of damage, and dealing extra damage to one or two creatures at a time. Also, the whole "attack a static defense" thing doesn't preclude creative combat. Especially if either a.) you have no way of determining the enemy's weakest defense or b.) you have no attacks that attack the enemy's weakest defense. You've got a problem with the creativity of the people you're playing with if the battles are uncreative. Replacing class specific systems and making everyone's battle system work the same way doesn't really strike me as a bad thing.
jioan:
-The game rules seem to do everything they can to turn the game into a series of dice roles and extract roleplaying. Skill challenges can turn exciting chase scenes or conversations into simply rolling dice and hoping for high numbers. The alignment system is now smaller and one dimensional instead of two dimensional so that grey areas were all but removed. Miniatures (or at least tokens) are now required converting the game from roleplaying to tactical combat. I feel more like I'm playing a Warhammer heroes game than a roleplaying game.
I have to disagree with you completely on this. If all the 4.0 games you've played are like this, then the failing is with your DMs, not the game itself. Yes, the game
allows for everything to turn into either a combat or skill encounter, with dice rolls, but if the DM is creative in their storytelling, then you also end up with a lot of roleplaying too. We've spent entire 4- and 5-hour sessions just roleplaying, not doing encounters of any kind, in both games that I play in currently.
Also, miniatures have always kind of been necessary for the game. When I was playing 3.5 we used dice to represent our and the monsters' locations so that we knew where everything was during combats. So I don't see how that's really a change. Maps being required is the bigger change, I think. But honestly I again don't see that as a
bad thing.
As for the alignment system, can you honestly say that you'd really played your characters that deeply? Or that everyone ELSE in your parties did? All they really did was turn "Neutral" into "Unaligned" and remove the contradictory player alignment of "Chaotic/Good"... because nobody really knew how to play that anyways.