Wizards of the Coasts drops the 5E bomb:
D&D is more than just a set of rules for fantasy gaming. It launched an entire gaming genre and played a pivotal role in creating the entirety of the gaming industry, both analog and digital. The game has lived and thrived because it has awoken a spark of creation, visions of daring adventure, wondrous vistas, and untold horrors that pull us all together as a community of RPG fans. It is the countless players and DMs who have brought it to life over the years. The game is at its best when it is yours.
For that reason, we want your participation. The goals we have set for ourselves are by no means trivial or easy. By involving you in this process, we can build a set of D&D rules that incorporate the wants and desires of D&D gamers around the world. We want to create a flexible game, rich with options for players and DMs to embrace or reject as they see fit, a game that brings D&D fans together rather than serves as one more category to splinter us apart.
True believers have lost faith. Factions squabble. The enemies are not only massed at the gates of the kingdom, but they have also broken through.
This may sound like the back story for an epic trilogy. Instead, it’s the situation faced by the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, the venerable fantasy role-playing game many consider to be the grandfather of the video game industry. Gamers bicker over Dungeons & Dragons rules.
Dave over at Critical Hits says:
If you’d like to try the latest version of D&D, D&D Experience is coming up at the end of the month. Not only am I one of the special guest bloggers, both ChattyDM and I will be running several tables of it (as will actual WotC employees) so sign up now if you’d like to give it a try.
“Just like a player makes his character, the Dungeon Master can make his ruleset,” says Mearls. “He might say ‘I’m going to run a military campaign, it’s going to be a lot of fighting’… so he’d use the combat chapter, drop in miniatures rules, and include the martial arts optional rules.”
“You can have as little or as much customization as you want,” he says. “It’s about letting people find their own way to play.”
This design and more in the Tabletop Role-Playing Game Collection….
Githyanki Diaspora 
Why do I think that this is going to turn out like that scene in the sewers from LIFE OF BRIAN?
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I think 4E left me hesitantly hopeful on this. 4E was not perfect, by any means, but it did show that they were/are capable of having a solid design core, which is why I’m willing to even accept 5E might be decent.
Thing is, I’m curious how modular things can be without making it completely different games and still work, and, whether they can manage to figure out a solid design direction without letting the edition war crusaders poison the open testing process. (“Wait, no THACO? This whole thing is broken! *flips table*”).