I have been thinking about this allot lately and I think I have thought up a couple of ways I think something’s in SR4 should work.
Edge: This will only work as intended if it is accessible for non cybered characters and diminished in someway for cybered characters. So why not combine it with Essence? Seems like a good idea. However it would leave Magic wielding characters with all there magic and an edge.
Example:
Instead of Att+Skill its Edge+Essen... potentially it could give mundanes a huge edge. Combining it with the way Karma worked so that say you could roll your edge for initiative instead and get access to the rule of six. Or burn it to get auto hits. And since the formula for all tests is tn 5 count hits it makes sense that initiative would be this way as well. Which means you can use edge to buy hits...
Skills (weapons)
Blades (would cover everything with a point)
Blunt (everything without a point)
Longarms (rifles of all kinds)
Shortarms (pistols SMGS)
Heavy Weapons (LMGs to HMGs)
Gunnery (Anything mounted on a vehicle)
Magic
Hearing the guys talk at origins (and talking to a friend who went) I get the impression that Magic is some sort of character quality that you can buy at creation for a token amount of BP's, then buy it up to 6 (the highest it can go from what I can tell). Now you probably cant get a magic higher than your essence.
So I still see everyone having 3 or 4 points of Cyber ware and then 2 or 3 points of magic. I hope this is avoided somehow.
Stats and Skills
From what I can tell your stats have a cap of 6 (plus racial) and so do your skills. I sincerely hope there is some mechanism for advancement that lets you o higher than that. If not then inside a year all characters in a given session will be identical. That would really suck. Half of why you play is for advancement, and if there is a roof on that then you get stuck.
Rigging (yes because I HATE the term hacker)
This should be totally integrated into the rest of the system. I have seen hints that a vehicles movement is going to be a walking/running rating, I don't know how I feel about that. Could be good could be bad. Initiative for a vehicle should work EXACTLY like it does for everyone else. No maneuver score or any of that crap.
Guns
Pistols should do less damage than rifles and penetrate armor less, not more. Riffles should have great AP and good damage. Don't get into this trap of making some uber pistol like the Ares SG because you think pistols are cool.
Gun ranges... double the SR3 ranges on all the rifles and its a start.
Gun prices.... cut them in half and its a start.
Well that’s all I can think of for now. I realize that SR4 is probably in its final state as it is now. But I would like the devs to think about things as they put it to bed. This is the game as it is going to be for a long time, make it good.