L5r 4th Edition: Book of Earth

Girlfriend bought the book and it's arrived.  She wants to run a game, but wants me to review the mechanics to help run the game smoothly.  While I was disgusted with the atrocity that was L5r 3rd edition, I've been promised numerous times that 4th will be great.  I am skeptical, but there have been numerous items that the design team has done to give me hope.  Between trading forum posts with Shawn Carman himself, to reading the design diaries, they are learning how to build an RPG.  However, without a good understanding of their design process, I was unwilling to give full confidence.  Now that I have the book and have reviewed it, here's the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

The Good:
Rule of 10 - it has been changed such that every die is important now.  Having odd numbers no longer means a 'dead level'.  This also makes skill gradients better.
Cooperative Roll - much simpler, and there is a benefit for all.  The two different types of cooperative rolls make sense and encourage the use of this feature.
Combat Time - I'm glad that they clarified the amorphous nature of time in combat.  It is a clear step towards a more cinematic and less tactical style of game play.
Duration Termination - the final reaction stage of the Combat round is an excellent idea to clarify when durational abilities terminate.  It will reduce a ton of confusion that was previously present.
Action Terminology - 1 Complex = 2 Simple?  Yeah, that's easy to remember and easy to classify.
Terrain Types - Good descriptions and clear definitions of what does what.  If only the Skill TN chart were as informative.
Combat Maneuvers - Great job in descriptions in general.  Things are easier to deal with.
Extra Attack Maneuver - Excellent clarification.  It's been what every L5r rules lawyer has been looking for since 3.0 was released.  While I am disappointed it took a full edition for a formal change to be made, I'm glad it's here.
Conditional Effects Glossary - awesome.  I love it.
CP is gone, just XP now - About damned time.
Stance Dance Revolution! - I like the new stances in general.  Especially the new Center stance.  I can see the Crane hopping between Center and Attack/Full Attack to maximize offense.
Iaijutsu - It's been simplified, but I actually liked the old focus wars.  I thought it was good for building tension.  It also burned a ton of void points.  The removal of Agility as a dueling skill is a good thing though.  Fire is already an over used ring.  I also love the widened window for kharmic strikes.  Overall, good changes.

The Bad:
TNtbH - still the same old method of calculation.  This will lend towards the "unhittable" and the "punching bag" scenario. There needs to be a better way to deal with this.
Earth * X - The Lethality and Wounds section gives multiple "settings" for difficulty.  This would have fallen into "The Ugly" category if not for the note that Earth*2 is the default.  Really, it's just wasted real estate on the page.  Why even have a lethality setting?  I can't see anyone using it.  Also, it changes the game dynamics drastically.  Increased health pools make initiative based classes weaker by way of prolonging the combat.
Glory/Honor points - To a new reader, it's more difficult to find how this functions.  It was much easier reading decimal places in the old book.  Although moving to a 10 point system is good.


The Ugly:
Feint - While I appreciate the new terminology, I fail to see the point of having a second "Increased Damage" option.  With the express exception of creating a different scale for Bayushi Bushi, Feint and Increased Damage fill the same role: increased TN difficult for increased damage.  Something needs to be done to differentiate Feint.
TN Table - it's the same crap we got before.  Sure I see that TN 20 is the difficulty for jumping a 10 ft ditch, but how does that relate to rock climbing?  Or swimming?  There really is not enough description on the TNs.  An customized TN chart should be made for each skill.  This chart is near useless.
Armor TN - they need a better phrase.  TN to be Hit was much better.  Seriously, I just read a phrase that said "This attack roll ignores the benefits of armor to the Armor TN." Ugh.  I know what it means, but it hurts to read.
Grappling with Weapons - Good clarification on what can be done in grapple...however, this section is fuzzy. It seems to imply that both characters in a chain weapon grapple would have to use the requisite grappling skill.


The Neutral:
Surprised penalty - being reduced is an interesting choice.  It makes initiative based schools better on the defense, while making it more difficult for stealth based schools.


This concludes the Book of Earth review.
Book of Fire is next.