Jason, et al,
When it comes to the skills, what are your priorities for changes, and what principles will you apply when revising?
From your intro, it sounds like these are the priorities:
Reduce prep time
Backwards compatibility
Ease of use during play
Since everybody and their brother has`different opinions about skill use, you should also talk about the principles you will be using to evaluate any changes. Generally speaking, I expect you are using the following design principles, but I am very interested in hearing your opinion on these matters:
KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid – When two systems achieve the same general effect, use the simpler system.
Don’t look it up – whenever possible, create rules that don’t need to be referenced from the book to use. That is, use skill vs. skill checks over static DCs, or make the static DCs easy and intuitive (like Jump, which is based on the amount of feet jumped).
Utility – Dump or consolidate skills that don’t get used or that get rarely used. (Personal opinion: you need to be absolutely ruthless about this.)
Can I use the old stat block easily? – each change must be justified in light of its applicability of use with the old stat block. That seems to me to be the essence of backwards compatibility.
So, how close did I come to your vision in these matters? Anything you would add or subtract?