Now, first up, I'm on the fence for 4e, I also know very little of how it works outside the few tidbits, so nothing I'm going to suggest is going to try and incorporate anything of the sort.
First up, let's pick on the Races. Drop the racial free martial weapons. They're going to cause silly issues like in the Half-Orc case of being able to Sneak Attack with a Greataxe. They were a bad idea for elves in 3.0, they remain a bad idea. It especially hurts the human and half-elf races due to the fact that they don't have any such weapons
However, one GOOD thing about 3.5 is how you have exotic weapons that are considered martial for the races. Like the Dwarves and their Urgrosh, or the Orcish Double Axe (So I happen to like my fantasy weapons in a fantasy game, sue me.) Why not keep pushing those? Give Elves the Double bladed sword, and such. My only thing is that I don't know what to give the halflings, or just give them a +1 with slings and thrown weapons.
Step Two: Classes. And I'm speaking as a MASSIVE, MASSIVE fighter fan, but I think some of the armour feats are going overboard. Now, I'm FIRMLY in the camp that the casters need to be taken down a peg or two, but I'm not sure I like the direction the Fighter is compensating with... Time will tell.
Step Three: Feats. One thing in 3.x that has always bothered me is that feats are often underpowered and lame. Seriously, who uses Great Cleave at high levels? The odds of taking down something that STILL gives out XP at level 10 in one blow is VERY, VERY tiny.
However, The Complete Warrior, along with the Book of Iron Might, by Mike Mearls under the Monte Cook imprint, gave us good examples as to what can be achieved. And I'd recommend taking a look at them and stealing... Er, adapting some of them. The Tactical Feats from CW as well as the Fighting Style one's from BoIM have a lot of potential.
Step Four: Skills. This is a step in the right direction. But 2+Int skills at first level is just plain painful for some classes. Especially since certain ones (Barbarian) it doesn't make much sense. In fact I'd be tempted to swap that class with with Fighter, and give the Wizard +4 skills because they are supposed to be 'scholars'. Or so the popular perception of them goes.
Other than that, I'd have to see how it works out before saying anything on it.
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First up, let's pick on the Races. Drop the racial free martial weapons. They're going to cause silly issues like in the Half-Orc case of being able to Sneak Attack with a Greataxe. They were a bad idea for elves in 3.0, they remain a bad idea. It especially hurts the human and half-elf races due to the fact that they don't have any such weapons
I like the free martial feats. They give us flavor-related crunch. Also, Half-Elves get One free Weapon proficiency.
Step Two: Classes. And I'm speaking as a MASSIVE, MASSIVE fighter fan, but I think some of the armour feats are going overboard. Now, I'm FIRMLY in the camp that the casters need to be taken down a peg or two, but I'm not sure I like the direction the Fighter is compensating with... Time will tell.
Jury's out on this one. It depends greatly what they do with the "broken" spells. Increase in armor class and "free weapon specialization" are in line with what a fighter would learn over time, so i like it. i'm not sure how it will balance out, however.
Step Three: Feats. One thing in 3.x that has always bothered me is that feats are often underpowered and lame. Seriously, who uses Great Cleave at high levels? The odds of taking down something that STILL gives out XP at level 10 in one blow is VERY, VERY tiny.
You may want to take a look at how Paizo changed the Cleave and great Cleave Feats. Great Cleave lets you continue to attack adjacent enemies as long as you keep hitting (limit once per foe per round) and is set up by a full round cleave attack.