Ridiculously, I now have in my hands the Player's Handbook 3.

Haven't read it yet, but I will over the course of the next couple of days, and will probably take questions on it in a Wizards.com thread or something.

Player's Handbook 3 has been partially approved for play, effective now. Please check this thread for updates as to what is/isn't allowed, here is the initial list:

• Of the four races presented, only the Githzerai will be playable. We will also be adding the Shadar-Kai, to make up some of the slack. Both races are Rare.
  
  Please refrain from creating backgrounds for characters of either race, however, until we get their racial entries up in the forums. It won't be long.
• The Hybrid character options are NOT approved for use on Terres.
• Approved Classes: Monk, Runepriest, Seeker.
• Not Approved: Ardent, Battlemind, Psion. In short, the Power Point classes. This is because not only is Psionics rather un-thematic for us, but they also scream "Likely to be Errata'd very soon because they're broken as written!" So we will be revisiting these classes once an Errata or two is released for them, and we've had a chance to look them over in greater detail.

Otherwise, the book is approved. (Skill Powers, Superior Implements and all that rot.)

Pfft... haven't read the book yet, but what you say is all too believable. They have a perfectly viable system, so they go and muck with it for psionics. Grr. I always liked the concept of psionics (Julian Mae's Pliocene Saga starting with "The Many Colored Land" is good reading IMHO).

Changing to be different is NOT the same thing as change for improvement.