I seem to find myself pretty much in agreement with the comments made by Aelwulf, in his/her well written post.

http://www.enjoy-your-style.com/images/president-camacho-machine-gun.jpg

Health Regen might simplify but not over simplify compared to morrowind and oblivion. You just slept in between fights with no consequence in the previous games or chugged a cheap potion or spammed a low level healing spell. I imagine this will still happen for Skyrim though.

I'm ok with quest markers instead of them attempting detailed quest information. Bethesda just can't seem to do it if Morrowind is any indication. I suspect the sheer amount of quests is the primary cause for this.

Attributes weren't complicated game play wise but it seems they were complicated in design, because bethesda could never get them feeling right and fluid. Perks are more fun and add more to the game play. I would not be against an attribute system like in Fallout though.

"Give me your hand, and we will go get your item"

That's what I see happening more and more in TES...

Technically the attribute system required more intelligence because there was a fair bit of math involved in leveling. I wouldn't say that is good per se because it just forced you to grind. Morrowind's quest system did take more intelligence because you were given directions and you had to follow them to find places/people instead of just following a red triangle like a cat chasing a laser pointer dot.

Indeed, and if you read my statement, I referred to those of us both agreeing as well as disagreeing It's (hopefully) an all-encompassing statement. Anyway, even though the game mechanics are confirmed, we're still all just giving our opinions about the confirmed game mechanics because we've yet to experience for ourselves how the new gameplay mechanics will play out in a game scenario.

Also, I agree with you that this thread is about discussing the confirmed gameplay mechanics, so if calling the game "dumbed-down for console players" or "de-evolutionized" or "catering to a less intelligent audience" is part of the friendly discussion, then I'll have to wholeheartedly concur...we are having a discussion.

And the blame is still on those "other people", who also wants to play this game, ruining it with their dirty hands...

... of course...

Dumbing down. Previous ES games were not complicated, yet Beth felt that they needed to dumb them down even more to appeal to the widest audience. For shame, Beth, for shame.