it doesn't make sense that a warlord and only a warlord has a monopoly on bringing everyone back from death's door.
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But going back to the OP, WoTC would win back some of the disenfranchised if more conscious effort was made to reduce or at least smooth over the "metagame-ness".
Many of us want less "This guy has this ability just because he is a defender, leader, etc. or just to be balanced." and more "This guy has this ability because it makes sense for him to have this ability given his training, background, natural abilities, etc."
A move in that direction could go a long way towards winning some of the disenchanted back.
I see this as part of the same divide between setting and ingame logic on the one hand, and metagame on the other.
In AD&D, and even moreseo in 3E (with it's easy multiclassing) class is a reflection and expression of some ingame state of affairs. And on this approach to class, it doesn't make sense to have a class and class features that don't accurately express some feature of the ingame reality. So a 4e warlord class wouldn't make sense.
But in 4e classes are best seen as "metagame packages/bundles" first, which then determine some ingame state of affairs - but they don't themselves express any ingame natural categories. So whereas, in AD&D and 3E, "fighting men" and "magic-users" are part of the ingame reality, in 4e there are only warriors in the gameworld - fighters, warlords and STR-rangers are simply various metagame devices for playing a warrior in mechanically distinct but balanced ways.
With the non-martial classes the game hews closer to the pre-4e approach, and seems to treat wizards, sorcerers and so on as features of the ingame reality as well as elements of the metagame, but I personally don't like it when the game texts push too far this way, because it undermines what is appealing (to me) about the flexibility of the metagame understanding of classes. (I might also be comfortable with the metagame understanding of classes because it is closer to Rolemaster, in which classes are just bundles of skill-costs and not really ingame features - although Rolemaster also hews a bit closer to the ingame interpretation of classes when it comes to spell-using classes.)
Basically, he doesn't want a character to have to give up their other capabilities to be defined as a natural born leader - perhaps in one party, Gandalf is the inspirational glue that holds everyone together, while in another it is Aragorn, and in yet another it is Frodo.
It makes perfect sense because those truly natural born leaders BECOME warlords. That's their gig.
I think MrMyth gets closer to the point here. It's true that in 4e natural born leader PCs will be warlords. But this is not an ingame fact, it's a purely metagame fact - if you want to play a natural leader you have to choose warlord as your class. For those who think class is primarily an ingame rather than metagame status, this doesn't make sense because being a natural born leader isn't something you grow into or choose, and being a natural born leader doesn't stop you adopting a non-warrior profession like mage or cleric.
It therefore doesn't surprise me that warlords, along with Come and Get It, are a bit of a lightning rod for those who don't like the metagame-iness of 4e.
* Better modules.
* Less meta-gamey.
* Flavour determines mechanics, rather than mechanics-first.
* Core + Options.
I certainly agree with your first - but I don't think the 3E modules from WotC were very good either. And nor am I a fan of a lot of 2nd ed AD&D modules.
Obviously I don't agree with your second - and I feel this is probably
the aspect of 4e that puts off the greatest number of players of earlier editions.
I feel that your third isn't really distinct from your second - because for me 4e does have flavour determining mechanics, but by "flavour" I mean something like "thematic potential" - eg if you want to make a class feel like an undead hunter, give it lots of radiant powers, or if you want to make it feel sneaky give it utilities that enhance the Stealth skill, or whatver. Whereas I feel that by "flavour" you mean something like "gameworld reality". So (if I'm right in my interpretation of you) we read the flavour-mechanics interaction differently
because we have different attitudes towards the metagame-iness issue. A different approach to the latter would, I feel, naturally lead to your desired flavour-mechanics relationship.
Your fourth I'm indifferent to. Despite a lot of reference to "everything's core", as far as I know the only books that say, on the cover, "Core Rules" are the various volumes of the core three - the others, like the Power books, the AV books, and the setting books, call themselves "Supplements". And in any event the vast majority of this material consists in new feats, powers, classes and races, which are in their nature very modular and so easily approach in a core/options fashion by those who want to (in this way they remind me of Rolemaster, which has a plethora of classes, races, spell lists, weapons and so on but all as optional modules).
If I'm playing Ravenloft and it plays no differently than Forgotten Realms... something is wrong. My point is that there should be enough mechanical tweaks and changes that the feel of the setting comes across in play to both the players and DM's.
providing some form of different mechanics for flavor and variety when it comes to the different 4e settings would be one of the things WotC could do to get me interested in buying their stuff again
I haven't thought very hard about this, but my feeling is that the way you would do this would be by ruling in or out certain classes or races - because these are the main source of mechanics-driven PC flavour - and ruling in or out certain monsters or traps/hazards/terrain - because these are the main source of mechanics-driven encounter flavour.
4e does quite a bit of the second - all the setting books like Underdark, Plane Below etc have lots of setting-specific terrain, hazards and creatures. (For example, in 4e the most obvious way to do Ravenloft horror would be via psychic damage and associated conditions - and Open Grave has examples of this in its discussion of hauntings, and different ways of building and adjudicating them.)
With Dark Sun, 4e seems to be doing the first also - that is, tweaking the PC-build options (but other than adding in themes, not really changing the basic mechanics of PC-building) to yield a bit more setting-specific mechanics-driven flavour. (As someone else posted, 4e FR did this a bit with the spellscarred stuff - but Dark Sun seems to be pushing it a bit further.)
