Mike,
These are all solid points and I"m glad you're willing to think about alternatives. I played SL for a while back when it was the "wild west" (before the gambling ban) and then quit for a while and just got back a few months ago. I don't have any ill-will towards Viewer 2 and I don't really see what the big deal is. I don't find it particularly unstable or slow... I do think they should have a viewer that has *significantly* lower hardware requirements. That's partly why WoW is so successful, it will run on any old trash laptop. LOL
Regarding the economy, however, I think you're missing one thing. SL spending is probably directly related to job recovery. People who have stock portfolios - which are now on the way to recovery - are probably not a big part of the SL population. It's working stiffs. And working stiffs are still struggling today and will be through 2011. I think 2012 is the year of the rebirth for SL, which is why I wanted to get back into it now.
Regarding your other points, I think you're on target for some, but I need an explaination of others...
* what rules have they changed? it seems very similar to the way I left it.
* what costs have increased? private land was always outrageous and I think they should reduce those costs, but we'll see, right?
* the SL marketplace, while convenient, is killing the point of having the platform. SL Marketplace is turning SL into a dress-up-dolly simulator. :-/ do not want.
* I don't know what questionable improvments you're referencing, but I can think of a few that would help out a lot.
Maybe this isn't the place for it, but I really believe that a robust, yet standardized, skills and combat system would remake this game entirely. As an opt-in system, it would allow the existing roleplay communities to leverage a native skill & combat system that is baked into the viewer without resorting to the kludgey overlays they're currently running... or maybe I"m just off track here.
Anyway... what do you think of my previous, more coherent points? lol
Del