First of all, thanks for getting us updated about our virtual future. I must admit that you (FC) put some efforts in improving communication issues with your players.
The most serious issues brought up by this incoming patch, in my opinion, are the PvP & the Pet classes nerf issues. These are extremely serious, so please continue working on it before releasing a let's-try-it-as-is-and-see-later kind of patch.
The Traders, which have already a vast arsenal of means to almost get the lead in PvP fighting, will turn out to be so overpowered with this patch as it's already ridiculous, just thinking of the consequences this patch would come up with. I mean, please reconsider the fact that an already 120 debuffing Trader today, for example, may turn an opponent of the same level into an opponent 24-30 levels less (only considering it from the IP perspective, not to take any prior buffs running into account). This will get even worse as the debuffed guy will not only suffer from a severe hindering of his Nano-casting possibilities, but also from a Damage & Armor Class reduction. You just can not allow this to happen. I sincerely hope you measured how these changes -alone- will turn PvP interaction pointless and biased.
Pet classes, on the other hand, are those which primarily rely on pets to inflict damage. Now this may sound obvious, but apparently, it does not. Why only lower over-equipped weapons damage and still completely shut down pet capabilities ? This solution is just completely unfair. And if you think of the false argument about most pet classes using weapons as well (and thus, thinking of them as being, say, fighting classes equals in terms of damage-dealing possibilities) and only considering their pet as a damage-dealer "bonus", then forget it, because this is untrue. Many engineers and bureaucrats primary goal is to not pull the aggro, and just shoot their weapon or their Direct Damage Nano when the situation is either unrisky or desperate, which means their overall damage-dealing capabilities are -at best- equivalent to weapons users. As a consequence, shutting down their pets capabilities because of these exceeding the 20% requirements cap is not a serious way of dealing with the problem. Please try to think about an alternative way consisting of a proportional decrease in pets damage-dealing possibilities, or/and even a proportional decrease in pets Hit Points (max & actual HP, with a maximum decrease as to not kill the pet). This will make you friends, and will not crowd your hard drives with early-retired bureaucrats and engineers.
Lastly, as I've been actually playing a bureaucrat as my main character, and considering the issue of the charm nanos being useless at higher levels, I must absolutely encourage you to take a look at the 5th Bureaucrat Convention thread on the Bureaucrat forum. There I'm sure you will find many reasonable ideas and solutions discussed by numerous valuable bureaucrat dedicated players, about most issues we Rubi-Ka brains have to deal with in the actual state of the game.
Thanks for your time.
Ahmad "Lutherio" Laurence.