Either way, there are two real problems. First and foremost was the design team's inability to maintain balance in the system. "Magic" continued to get better, and worse, started to slowly supplant the "Machine" of the game. Not a problem if this was some other kind of game, but when the Street Samurai are reduced to the level of the cannon fodder bad guys, the game is no longer Shadowrun. The second glaring issues is with Shadowrun's tech progression, in that it can't seem to decide whether it is going to follow a "believable" advancement (a lot of this is skewed by the last thirty years of rapid advancement), or whether to maintain a level of forced normalcy to keep the game world intact. Considering that it is all fantastech, there was never any need to make things slowly get outdated. Maybe cyberware just hits a wall where it's just not going to be able to get any better just because it is limited by human capacity. Maybe it uses components that never really get any cheaper. Fixed costs and margins will always keep certain products expensive. Cyberware implants aren't (or don't have to be like) consumer electronics such TVs. Either way, it would have been extremely simple to keep cyberware's performance as a constant. Though, this problem is almost definitely linked to the decision to continue making Magic bigger and better (somebody must have had a hard on for mages at some point, lol). The funny part is, since Magic is entirely make believe, curtailing its power was probably the easiest thing possible had some planning and foresight been used.
This got me thinking. If someone gave me the reins, I think I'd do something like the following.
1) A sudden negative spike in ambient mana. Over the course of a week, magic all across the globe starts dropping off significantly, then over the course of the next week it just plummets. The Awakened community is panicking, because no one knows what's going on and everyone's magic is failing. The Corporations are scrambling to protect themselves, because everyone at least dabbles in magical goods and most certainly relies upon magical defenses to protect a lot of their resources. The natural world is in violent upheaval with critters running wild, ley lines shifting, natural disasters rolling in one after another, and an inexplicable surge in plant growth resulting a creeping tide of green causing untold damage to human infrastructure. The Infected community is reeling and desperate from a sudden mass weakening of their powers, prompting record numbers of attacks on the ordinary population. All in all, things are crazy.
Another week rolls by and mana levels are still dropping, but the rate has mercifully slowed. Everyone holds their breath during a tense fourth, and final, week in which mana levels just sit unmoving, and then everything just snaps. The whole ordeal culminates in a massive rubber banding effect, with the ambient mana figuratively (and in a few places where the ley lines cross, literally) exploding, ushering in a couple months of record high mana levels, which slowly drop off again, but which still level out higher than they originally started.
Magic just had a growth spurt, and it shook some things up in the process. The door is opened for all sorts of interesting (and largely unpleasant) changes for the Sixth World, some at nearly fundamental levels.
The net effect? There's more magic in the world. Critters and the natural world are nastier than ever, as are the Infected. Awakened metahumans are finding that despite greater mana levels, they're having a harder time "using" mana. Hermetic schools theorize that a fundmental shift in mana has pushed it to a different "frequency" which metahumanity has a harder time "resonating" with. Shamanic communities intead argue that Nature is merely angry, and that the Earth and its powers are fighting back against the abuses of humanity. Whatever the case, overall, people are less able to control magic as they wish, despite it being stronger than ever.
Et cetera.
2) Technology gets a boost, but it comes at a price. Maybe some new material is designed which has revolutionary benefits, a la Plasteel, and it starts sweeping the tech field. Or maybe the recent shifts in the nature of magic have also resulted in unforseen consequences for technology, like new alchemical processes allowing for new factoring methods. Or maybe physics itself has been slightly altered along with magic, if that sort of thing would fly lorewise, I dunno.
Whatever the case, cyberware is now cheaper and has more benefits and options than ever before. The downside is that it also rots your soul more than ever before. Chrome can make you faster and fiercer than anything else out there - even magic - but it flies in the face of all that is natural. People might be readily accepting of lopping off limbs and replacing them with machines, but Nature isn't. This produces some interesting physical results, ranging from cyber-invoked "Critter Spooking", to magical resistance and spell backfiring, to bizarre medical developments wherein cybered patients respond normally to synthetic food and drugs, but allergically to natural ones.
There are also some less tangible effects floating around as well. Certain types of spirits have begun acting differently towards the cybered. Large numbers of Beast Spirits, Plant Spirits, and other "natural" spirits have begun reacting negatively, and even violently, toward those sporting 'ware, while substantial numbers of Spirits of Man, Task Spirits, and other spirits tied to "humanity" seem to be of the opposite persuasion, appreciating the boundless ingenuity and craftsmanship of humanity that they see cyberware as representing. And perhaps most unsettlingly, amongst the rest of the chaos that unfolded during the brief dip in mana levels, a strange breed of unknown spirits appeared and began attacking heavily cybered individuals. Cases ranged from simple harassment and astral "hallucinations", to full blown possession and even eventual madness. Attacks stopped suddenly when global mana levels recovered, but in many cases the effects lingered.
(Also, while I'm at it, maybe we could also have some advances in jarhead cybernetics, opening up the extreme end of the tech/magic dichotomy. Once you start down the unnatural road, where exactly do you expect to stop? Just how far are you willing to go, and just what price are you willing to pay for power? You can do such much more with a fully robotic body if you're willing to take that step, and it would offer some very interesting roleplay and gameplay challenges to make that option more readily available alongside traditional cyber.)
~Umi