Heya Kirk, been a while.
There's good news for SST, depending on how you view things though.
As you know Mongoose is going all prepainted and using a rulesset based on the SST rules (pretty much SST v2) called Evolution.
Battlefield Evolution is the first game from mongoose to use these new rules, and they have the rules available for free download on its page. Likewise, there's free unit stats available in S&P 41 wargamer. The rules and units in BFE are slanted towards moderns, but you can get a general idea of some of the changes made in the system.
Some of the biggest changes to the rules are:
- * Units get only 1 reaction a turn.
* The entire unit reacts, not just the model. So if an enemy unit ends within 10" of one of your models, your entire unit gets to react.
* You can now react to being shot at.
* Shooting and damage have been changed to where you roll all your attack dice, then the closest model gets assigned the highest die, then the next closest the next highest, and so on. This drastically simplifies the process of assigning damage dice and does away with special rules to handle different units being in the fire zone.
* For BFE, cover now gives +2 to target and kill stats. Also due to the way the new shooting rules work, cover is much more intuitive, no more single unit being out of cover making the whole unit lose its cover. Instead since damage dice are doled out to individual models, with the closest models taking the hardest hits. Any models out in the open and closer to the enemy will usually die. Any models in cover and closer to the enemy will take higher damage dice, but with cover they usually survive (Cover makes normal infantry 6+/8+ target/kill).
* Lethal Zone weapons are gone, replaced by a more intuitive system that works within the fire zone system.
* Units that lose their leaders are no longer useless, instead they simply lose 2 actions then get to choose a new leader
* Suppression has been added where if a unit has enough damage dice thrown at it, then it will lose its next action, and can only react by moving. If this happens twice in a turn it loses 2 actions total.
There's probably more stuff to the rules I'm forgetting, but that's just the basic rules, there's plenty of stuff in the advanced rules section that we haven't seen. Overall it's much more balanced than in original SST, and with the way the action, reaction, and suppression rules all interact it leaves a lot of room for tactics between shooty armies. So now there's a point to having fights between MI, or against skinnies.
Some of the advanced rules hinted at include a way for units to shoot past their max weapons range, rules for shooting from elevated positions (thus negating some cover and hitting the vulnerable top armor).
The old miniatures will still be available for purchase unpainted and unassembled, and it's likely many stores will either discount their current SST stock for the Evo stuff. I know I plan to buy some tankers, plasma, hore hoppers, and some ripplers for my swarm.
All of the old miniatures will be valid in Evo, and their stats will be available for free in Signs and Portents. All future unit stats will be available free via S&P as well, however the main rulebook will not have unit stats. It's really not an issue since they're easily obtained for free both online and in the box.
I needs my Venerable Marauders 
