Who is at fault for 4th Edition?

I'm sorry, Zenosaga, but that just sounds ignorant. As much as I like to rant about 4e, nobody is really at fault. WotC is following what they believe to be the current trend in the market. Sure, it might be the same trend that Blizzard cashed in on with WoW, but they are hardly responsible for it. If the majority cares more for hack & slash than they do for storytelling or roleplaying, it's only sensible, from the business point of view, to cater to those preferences. Also, if you've ever played WoW, you'll realize that they have quite a story woven through the thousands of quests. Just because many people power level and goldfarm does not mean that the game itself is solely hack & slash, although it does make it less interesting than intended (and this is one of the reasons that I quit). I agree that 4e is far less story-driven than 2e Planescape, but you could say that it is going back to its roots. After all, D&D started out with more dungeon crawling than talking. The genre slowly evolved to focus on the roleplaying aspects, but it had a limited following. The fanbase swelled grealty with 3e and moreso still from the popularity of such games as WoW. Most of the new people who come to tabletop roleplaying through such a route start at the beginning of the genre... that is, dungeoncrawling. It is only logical for WotC to attempt to attract those people, as they are probably much more numerous than oldschool roleplayers. As for people like you and me, as well as the longevity of such a market strategy... that's a separate issue. To be sure, nothing is stopping us from roleplaying. It might be a bit more difficult, because the new rules do not focus on it, but it is still possible. It gets more difficult still to update older settings like Planescape, because the monster stats do not follow the 2e fluff, but then again, that was never their plan. It's annoying, I agree, but it's not an evil plot. There's no secret plan to ruin roleplaying games.

Surely the Spanish Inquisition are the ones to blame?

I'm gonna disagree with this one. WoW and tabletop RPGs are not the same animal, and never were really intended to be. (I'm also of the opinion that the video game medium by its very nature restricts rather than enhances rolEplaying. I think that's one reason why tabletop and PBPs still exist when much more advanced technology is available.)

I think WoW is doing well because it has a well designed, easy-to-figure-out UI, and good, addictive gameplay. It doesn't hurt that it has decent graphics and is relatively free of game-breaking bugs. Video games and 'real' RPGs seem like comparing apples and oranges to me, though.

Huh? Does 4E have spell levels that match class levels now? Wouldn't surprise me.

Zim, you gotta remember that WoW is really really popular, and that WotC is only out to increase it's profits. It'd make perfect sense to try to cater to MMORPG players. How well it allows roleplaying isn't an issue if the majority of the audience thinks roleplaying is running around slaughtering wolves and designing your own costume.

There is currently a concerted effort on the parts of game makers to dumb down all games and gamers so that all they need for a good game is pretty graphics and lots of hype. Look at Oblivion. That is what people think an RPG is now days.

We'll need fire or acid to kill this one.

Methinks it's an implication that everything Zenosaga said was evidence of the presence of a troll. But I'm staying out of it