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These concerns are addressed in the order that I noticed them as apposed to any perceived notions of severity. This is a very long wall of text so feel free to either read it or not, but please don't complain about it. I tried to give a reasonable amount of organization and formatting.
1. The Action Icons. While I like the 1-3 Action icons and the Free Action icon, the Reaction icon is not easily recognizable from either a single action or a free action when quickly browsing over content. This is jarring to me almost every time and I have to stop and take a second glance to identify it.
2. Proficiency Modifiers. Personally I feel the proficiency modifiers do not express the difference in skill between each 'rank' compared to each other. In terms of a d20, the difference of Untrained to Legendary is only 5, or 25%. Using a scale such as Untrained:0, Trained:4, Expert:3, Master:2, Legendary:1 gives a difference of 10 or 50% and puts a greater emphasis on training skills over honing them. I also feel this is a better balance of a character training vs innate skill due to their level. As a note I understand that skill feats are supposed to emphasis the differences in skill proficiency, but felt they were not up to the task on their own except for legendary skill feats.
3. The Level 1 Ability Boosts. Multiple members of my group missed that they got four free ability boosts because it wasn't mentioned in the Character Creation steps. Steps 2-5 tell you that you get boosts from your Ancestry (step 2), boosts from your Background (step 3), boosts from your Class (step 4), and then tells you to finalize your ability scores (step 5). Step 5 does refer you to see page 19 for more details which includes the detail that you get 4 free ability boosts at level 1 and the later step-by-step example shows this. However this should also be included between steps 4 and 5 for clarity.
4. Racial Feats. This is a minor criticism but racial feats should include a traits to distinguish between 'cultural' racial feats and 'bloodline' racial feats making it easier to understand what feats you can and can't access with the Adoptive Heritage feat. I realize that the 'bloodline' trait is already used for sorcerers and should be different but I couldn't think of another word at the moment.
5. Traits in General. Again a minor criticism, abilities with multiple traits should have them organized with racial traits first, followed by class traits, and then all other traits in alphabetical order. Also animal companion and familiar related feats and abilities should have a trait indicating them to make them easier to identify while browsing.
6. Class Advancement Tables. I felt that having all the advancements from every source on a singular table instead of the general class advancement table with class specific tables felt cluttered. However if this is the direction that the design is going to go, once again in the goal of consistency, level 1 ability boosts need to be listed on the class advancement tables as it lists all the other ability boosts at levels 5, 10, 15, and 20.
7. The Alchemist. The most common questions in my group about classes in general were how many formulas does the alchemist know at level 1 and how many can he prepare daily with Advanced Alchemy. While I eventually made a ruling that they know 8 formulas at level 1 (4 from advanced alchemy and 4 from their formula book) and that they could use advanced alchemy to make as many half batches daily as they had resonance points for, I am not confident of my answers because the section is unclear in my opinion.
8. Spontaneous Spellcasters and Spell Casters in General. As much as I try and want to like and justify the changes to spell casters, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. With previous editions if someone wanted to play a spellcaster but was sure I would suggest that they play a sorcerer as I felt it was the most simplified. Now I would argue that spontaneous spellcasters in general are more complicated then prepared spellcasters. My personal suggestion for both types of spellcasters be that all spells are prepared or learned at their lowest level but can be heightened spontaneously at the time of casting.
9. Paladins. Pretty much what I was expecting after the blog post. That being said I feel it is unacceptable for the only class capable of legendary proficiency with armor to be restricted to a very specific alignment. If the word paladin is going to be kept that restrictive, I think the class should be renamed to Champion (or something else) and Paladin should be reworked as a Archetype or presently in a more specific supplement.
10. Class Feats. This is perhaps my single greatest issue with this edition. I never liked the 'fighter feat' system of 3.x and usually would allow players to ignore that restriction as long as they met all the other requirements. This system only exasperates that issue in addition to wasting page space. Multiple classes with identical or near identical feats is a waste of space. Personally I think a unified section with all the class feats and a section in each class listed which class feats they have access too would be a better system. I recognize that this would eventually run into the same issue that happened with spell lists in 3.x that they are resolving by having four spellcasting traditions. In that case I would rather see these class feats broken up into 'traditions' such as 'Animal Companion', 'Familiar', 'Combat', and etc and then each class could simply list which 'traditions' of feats they can access to. This would save page space and provide an easy way of expanding the options available to existing classes in later supplements in a consistent and easily referable manner.
11. General Feats. I don't even know how to express my disappointment in this section other then I truly hope this isn't all they plan to ship with in the core rulebook.
12. Cavalier and Pirate Archetypes. My main issue with the Cavalier Archetype is that if you use it for your Animal Companion it is better then the one from ranger class feats and arguably the druid class feats. Not only do you gain a stronger animal companion faster then a ranger (but slower then a druid) but the animal companion from the cavalier is capable of taking a single action even when you don't use handle animal on it. As far as I could tell, neither the druid or ranger animal companion could do this. I know displeasure over the Pirate Archetype has been expressed elsewhere so I will just leave it at it is too situational and should not be in the core rulebook as is.
13. The Rarity System. If this is going to be a base component to the game (i.e. if a feat or class talent refers to the fact that it only give access up to a certain rarity) the rarities of spells and items need to be noted more clearly and consistently. My biggest complaint here being that the equipment section has an entirely separate section and tables for uncommon equipment while spells merely has a tiny little superscript for their rarity and also a superscript if the spell can be heightened. This should be a standard format across tables and if possible not shared with other notations. As a suggestion I would make one superscript and the other subscript to distinguish the two.
14. The Treasure Section. This section should probably be organized by level or at the very least have a table listing items by level to aid Alchemists find alchemical items they can craft at their level as well as let other adventurers know what they can craft or buy at their current level.
Some positive notes:
Using a base DC for the 'defender' in opposed checks is a improvement over opposed rolls. (Overview -> Basic Concepts -> Die Rolls -> Your Difficulty Class for those who missed this)
I generally like the use of Archetypes for multiclassing.
Skill Feats felt solid
Personally I like the addition of resonance making charisma less of a 'throwaway' stat and feel it fits thematically.
Actual gameplay during the first session went smoothly and most players had little to no problems knowing what actions they could take and when. The main sources of frustration in the group was the layout, understanding the Alchemist's Advanced Alchemy, and those that realized they shorted themselves ability boosts.