Predictions from your friendly neighborhood architect...

I thought LF's observation regarding more emphasis on using textures to define architecture rather than lots of prims is very astute.

A lot can be simulated within a texture to make a flat surface look 3 dimensional. Many first person shooters still make great use of this technique. Granted in those 'worlds' you're usually not paying attention to the architecture (unless you're me).

(Hmm another tutorial to add to the list of ones I've promised people and haven't done yet!)

The point is that a lot can be done with textures to minimize prims.

Oh, and I'm down with building in the sky as well

Regarding some sort of browsable "search" function for shopping, this would be a bad thing, IMHO. SL Shopping should be the social experience it is now. Most shopping in There is done via their web site, and it sucks.

The shopping sim that Haney has said is in the works has, I believe, the potential to make shopping easier for the consumer and selling easier for the creator. However, I really wish the Lindens would set up the structure for this sim and just rent showcase space to sellers; otherwise, we will wind up with another mis-matched and sparsely populated (but prim-heavy, thanks, Av Central) Aqua.

What about the current stores that are in their locations?... Are they going to have to move to this new market only sim or can they stay where they're at?

Don't you mean up with it? ;)

I'm curious to see how the new client fares performance-wise, and how all these new textures and upped prim limits affect my framerate..

<edit>
What if the search function just told you where something was, and you still had to go get it yourself? Perhaps if the search function wasn't a UI component, but a place in the world you would visit and use? Or is the social part you think it would lack the act of having to ask people where they like to shop?

I'm pretty sure that existing stores will stay right where they are, unless people choose to sell only in the mall sim to cut down on expenses and free land for other pursuits.

Stores serve a benefit to other builds they're around because they draw people there, who might then wander over to check out the surrounding area. Maxx's idea of a contiguous shopping teleport type dealie would probably have a negative impact on people who currently benefit from being near a popular shopping spot.

They could do the searchable shopping guide thing using the current land directory listings by just categorizing them.

I hope this is a bad prediction on my part, but is there anything stopping someone from getting 5, or 10, or whatever number of "one time fee" accounts, just so they can transfer the stipends over to a main account?

There are a few things limiting how many of these accounts they can use for this:
1) You'll need to spend a significant amount of time on the account to get the week's stipend. A minimum of five hours where you were logged in and not "away" seems reasonable. Time spent maintaining these accounts is time not spent on the main account.
2) The stipend for a "basic" account is small, and a "mule" account won't get any significant bonuses.

Yeah, I just re-read that--that's cool. I figured they thought these things through pretty well but that bit of info was eluding me!