All I'll say is, if SE dumbs the system down to 'bring up the bottom' so to speak, I'm going to be severely disinclined to continue subscribing even occasionally. There's little enough skill involved in combat as-is; it cannot be reduced.

That's not to say I'm automatically opposed to skill consolidation or a role-based system. I'm not. I think it could actually make the game easier to learn, while deepening the amount of required skill to master it. The devil is in the details, though. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.