Lazarillo

I notice character slots have also gone on sale for 50% off this week. Is there a reason that's not mentioned? Or should I keep my mouth shut because that wasn't meant to happen?

You don't really need a separate Archetype for this. The costume pieces already exist for a pretty good Masked Rider/Sentai look, and while my knowledge of the genre is admittedly rather limited, most of what I've seen can be duplicated pretty well with the current powersets. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a "Power Rangers"-style mostly-Scrapper supergroup running around out there right now, colored coded with, say, using Street Justice, Martial Arts, Dual Blades, Archery, and, like Electric Melee.

One thing I liked about Lambda is that it actually uses the League system by forcing the group to split up and assigning simultaneous goals. It's nice that if there's going to be such a large fighting force of players, that they are used in such a fashion. BAF has this to some extent as well, a bit more if you're going for the Keep 'em Separated badge. TPN tries to have it, but it doesn't really work since it's actually more efficient just to ignore the Telepathists. The others don't really make use of the League system, though, and that's a real shame.

I do also enjoy some of the gimmicks that are designed to emphasize strategy. This is a fine line to tread, and sometimes the trials pull it off, sometimes they don't. BAF does it well, with the aggro sharing and the simultaneous defeats. MoM does a good job as well, with each battle having one or two minor gimmicks, and having to adjust between them. However, it's possible to do too little or too much. Lambda's are boring. Use temps, and then it's just a normal fight. Marauder's jumps prolong the fight, but don't really make players have to think. Keyes has too many at once, to the point where it feels pointless to even pay attention to them. Underground doesn't do too bad, but the Confuse aspect is a little too focused on specific powers rather than strategy (Keyes did too, before the changes). And TPN? TPN is a real annoyance, with the fact that one of the strategic techniques was specifically removed. I really liked the fact that use less commonly helpful effects like Phase and Knockback could be used effectively.

The last thing to note is the "suitably epic" feel of the trials. The best ones for this, I think, are Underground and MoM. The former is a breathtaking journey into what ends up an alien world, the latter a classic brawl with a powerful arch-villain on her home turf. Both of these do a good job of accomplishing the way post-50 content should really feel. Less so the others, which don't feel like much more than generic military strikes that could've been done 15 levels before.

As a note, while not all IOs are available this way, you can purchase an unlimited number of the attuned IOs from the beta market at a "cost" of 0 points. These enhancements are pre-made, so you don't have to hope the devs seed the market, or spend a lot of time copying over characters with Merits, or the like. Since the Rare sets are cycled out, though, you'll have to snag those during the windows they're being tested. Personally, I have several sets "in storage" for the sake of future mucking about.

Recluse dying seems relatively likely to me as well. For one, it causes both sides to be affected more equally. For another, his Strike Force is already going to need some major remodeling after all this, just likes Statesman's will need to be co-opted somehow. Plus, the States/Recluse rivalry has been pushed waaaaayyyyy to the back of pretty much everything, and can't really work right anyway without one of them. I also suspect they'll both get offed.

Ah, okay, I didn't think the first time counted as "confirming", even if you didn't change alignments. My mistake, then.

Darn, that's what I thought, but I was hoping I was wrong.
Thanks though, guys.

Basically, see as above. I want to grab an extra server slot for my second account, which has 400 points stored, but don't really have anything else I want to do with 'em at the moment. There isn't some clever method to just pay my dollar, is there?

The Winter event has nothing to do with any of that. It's simply an annual tradition.
The Loyalty Program, on the other hand...