I thought about this last night.  It may be that it's so obvious that everyone else assumed it, but it wasn't obvious to me until I came to this realization.

Remember all those posts about how boring and repetitive the quests were?  Well, those are the quests, and the quest rewards, you get from having NO advances in the adventuring tree (because we couldn't advance that tree).  And even with no advances in that tree, we were getting rewards like +1 to attack, or some combat speed, or dex or charisma books.

Now, imagine if you advanced that tree as far as we're currently advancing the civilization tree, what kind of quests will be available, and what kinds of rewards may come from those. 

I...I think this game may not be in Kansas anymore, and we're about to be playing a game that looks nothing, nothing at all like your daddy's 4x game.  I, for one, am going to find it hard to sit still today.