A large percentage of the Player's Handbook in every edition of D&D contains information on spells. In the past only a few classes were able to cast spells. In 4th edition, every class will have some type of 'power' similar to spells.
I'm wondering if the new Martial Powers sourcebook is more like a 'Power Compendium' than a traditional 'Complete' base/prestige class book. If so, does anyone else fear that the Player's Handbook may intentionally have an underbalanced number of powers for all classes? There is also rumor that the a Spell Compendium type book will be available by the end of 2008.
I'm sure they'll be creating Arcane Powers and Divine Powers in the near future.
My guess is (with no actual evidence to back it up) that the powers that all classes will be more concise and have far less complexity than do the current spells. So each one will take up less room even though there are the same number or even more total.
Sean Mahoney