If programmers can't properly reproduce 1940's technology, which is fully understood, how could they even begin to replicate 1960's to 2000's technology, much of which is still secret.
Their choice to go with a revolutionary strategy "all new code" instead of an evolutionary and modular production shows that they have no long-term committment to excellence. That is likely very bad for developers and us.
A proper way to do this would be to announce a ten year program of continuous development with the goal of keeping a stable development team employed during the entire tenure. Taking a page from Ubuntu, an update could be released every three or six months, downloaded online. The game could be sold for a $30.00 upfront fee for the installation DVD and then a subscription of $5.00 per month for update privileges and online play. In fact, the game could have an online component that would prevent you from playing at all without a current valid subscription.
Repeating failed policies is likely to produce more failure. What we have is the best there is, but that doesn't mean that things could not be considerably better. A little enthusiasm, imagination and committment might produce wonders.
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