Any advance in the AW line is good news for us. Fanboi attitude is poison.
When I see an advance, I'll cheer it on.
1. I think the use of the Unreal engine is intriguing, but I've only seen implementations that had areas that looked about 10-20 miles square. So, who knows if they can make anything usable out of that. We've seen no evidence yet. Just some static screenshots probably from the Unreal editor program.
2. I think their multi-level payment model with a few f2p planes is smart. The "simple, short trial and then pay our subscription of F'off" model is as dead today as $2/hr was when HTC came in with flat rate.
Nothing else I've seen so far comes close to a definition of advancement. I await further data.