My only concern for the new update is that this might make the game less noob-friendly which, in my honest opinion, is a bad direction to go.
I play this game on Kongregate and regularly chat in the Elements chat. I see noobs struggling enough to farm and, if it gets any harder for noobs to start off, I think they'll just give up playing. Please just keep that in mind while experimenting with new features for 1.4 ^.^