My reaction:
I like the staff idea (and agree it's probably to fix the Conan the Barbarian problem). But I'd be happier knowing what "bugs" this patch is fixing. How could it be play-tested in such a short time (how can we be sure there aren't new bugs introduced)?
I get the impression that people were wanting something to fix the old issues (i.e., to justify buying the new rules), but it kind of seems superficial. We need to wait to see what are all the changes I guess?
Initial TFT was all about not having to have the DM decide too much arbitrarily (the rules were pretty explicit). It seems that XP in combat isn't going to be that way anymore.