Hopeling

Yes, that would definitely not be the same magnitude of change. The first change would allow you to survive a huge number of situations that would otherwise be lethal. The second change would allow you to survive a much smaller number of situations that would have killed you otherwise.

You're right, 5am reading comprehension fail. Sorry.

Yes, it does. But when you add it to 40%, that same number of points subtracted is half of the incoming damage - the same +5% defense doubles your survivability when you start at 40%, but only marginally increases survivability when there's no other defense to add it to. So, proportionally, it is worth more, exactly as Combat is saying. Basic time-to-live calculations demonstrate this also - each point of defense will add more time-to-live than the last point did, up to the softcap.

I agree.

If they can't make cutscenes skippable - properly skippable, by hitting escape or something, not just "if everyone on the league has run this before on the character they are currently playing" - there should be no cutscenes, or at the least they should be very rare, for big dramatic moments in the plot*. There really are very few things more frustrating than taking away control of my character, and even basic chat functions, for minutes at a time to show a bit of story that I have already seen multiple times.

*Romulus' Nictus transformation in the ITF is short, dramatic, and important, thus I don't mind it as much, although it's still annoying to watch it EVERY time. Recluse's big reveal in the STF is also passable. Marauder having a refreshing drink in Lambda, or some robots giving a solid two minutes of exposition in BAF, or etc, do NOT qualify.

Both TW and WP don't particularly favor brutes or scrappers, beyond the normal differences between those ATs. A scrapper will do a little more damage and benefit more from damage buffs, a brute will be a little tougher and benefit more from resist buffs. If you like to keep your team safe, you might prefer a brute for the greater taunting/tanking ability. As an added bonus, the TW taunt power has a cool animation.

Yes, because even unenhanced Fly puts you over the normal flight speed cap.

In terms of recovery, the performance shifters are better. In the absence of other recovery powers, the efficacy adaptors get you 2.49% end/sec, including the set bonus, while the performance shifters get you 2.37%/sec plus another .2%/sec (averaged over time) from the proc, for 2.57%/sec.
This is true, but it doesn't even have to be in the first slot. Procs work at any level, period.

To be fair, we don't yet know if he escaped the Well's control. But I won't be at all surprised if he somehow did, or if they just never address it.

No, they don't. Lightning Rod does considerably more.

The armor set looks quite toggle-heavy to me - the mez protection toggle especially could probably be rolled into one of the others, or divided among them.
I'm somewhat confused as to how Cold Fusion is supposed to work - to get the maximum effect, you activate it then spend 10 seconds doing nothing? That seems... odd.

I'm not sure where you got 31.9% from. An unboosted level 50 Def/End gives 15.94%/26.5%, and a +5'ed one gives 19.92%/33.13%, basically the same as a Cyto, minus the tohit buff, and at the cost of real money.

Congratulations, but this wasn't an ego contest.

What? No, using AE is granted at tier 2, and playing AE with rewards is at tier 4. Tier 6 allows you to create missions.

Posts that are in the wrong place get moved. If you think the suggestion forums never get read, you're wrong. Even if they never get read, why would the devs not read the forum specifically devoted to suggestions, but pay attention to suggestions elsewhere?

You mean in Mids? Shift-click on a slot to remove it.

70% DDR has to take -150% defense debuffs to go from 45% defense to 0%. If you get hit by that many debuffs, the problem usually isn't the debuffs making you more vulnerable, it's that the Cimerorans just hit you twenty times in the span of ten seconds and you're already dead. In most cascade failure situations, the /fire's defense will fail completely, and the /SD's will fail partially.
Mathematically, yeah, 0-70% is less of a difference than 70-95%. In terms of how they will perform in actual play, I'm not at all convinced that's true. Going from 0-70% DDR will keep you alive in many more situations; going from 70-95% in not nearly as many.

Plus, you can always build an Ageless and swap to it for missions where debuffs are an issue.

I don't disagree that such a change can kill the desire to play a character, though, when you liked the character because of the ability to withstand extreme situations.

The max level is 50. How long/difficult it is to get there will vary widely by how you play, plus it just gets easier once you know your way around. I recently got a character from 1-50 in about 60 hours of play time, which was pretty intense, although some people can do even faster. For your first 50, I'd expect it to take a few hundred hours of play time, although possibly much less if you find a good team/SG, and MUCH less if you get powerleveled. But don't do that, you miss all the good stuff. You shouldn't even consider letting someone powerlevel you until you know exactly what you'd be skipping. Unlike some MMOs, the fun doesn't start at the level cap, so don't be in a rush to get there.
You can take every power from your primary and/or secondary if you want to, limited only by how many power choices you get (a total of 24, by level 50). You can only choose four power pools, plus one "epic" pool at level 35+, but you can take as many powers as you want from the pools you choose, again limited only by how many power choices you get.
Paragonwiki has great info on just about everything you could possibly want to know about the game, including powers. You can also use Mids Hero Designer, which lets you plan out a whole build and see numbers and detailed information on what everything does.
Everybody starts with one reward token. You get an additional token at the end of each month of VIP subscription, and for every 1200 points you purchase. You must fill a tier completely before starting the next, but you can spend your tokens anywhere you want within the tier you're currently working on. Cape use isn't in the rewards tree, AFAIK - capes are unlocked by doing a mission at level 20+. What you're seeing in the rewards window is probably shoulder capes, which go over one shoulder, rather than regular capes.
Some relevant links:
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Reward_Token
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Paragon_Rewards_Program

I hope this helps, and I hope you're having fun Don't hesitate to ask if you have more questions.