I've been playing this game awhile, and one issue I keep having is just how poorly the Retcon system is for what it does. If you play the game normally, you get powers, advantages, and talents all jumbled together. This means nothing is particularly hard to retcon out of, but neither is anything particularly easy, as everything is stacked up in the order it was received.

On the other hand, if you use a total reset, from a free retcon token or another source, since everything is undone, you can now stack things up in whichever order you like, burying some things you're unlikely to change earlier in the build. Of course, this is pretty fiddly, and I'd wager many people don't think of it, or bother with it most of the time. I suspect what's far more likely is that people just pick an order to the various categories, (powers, advantages, super-stats, etc.) and use all of one category's points before moving on to the next.

I know that the various improvements to the Retcon system have made it better, but those really just lowered the price to where it is actually usable, down from the massive costs it had at launch.

What I'm wondering if there is a way to make it better.

Here's my thoughts:

Since each type of "progression points" is already handled separately when spending them, why not make them separate when ret-conning out of them? That alleviates much of the headache of realizing that you've made a mistake earlier in your build and having to spend a pile of resources to fix it, while at the same time taking much of the worry about "Should I float this on top of the build in case I don't like it?" when something needs more testing than the Powerhouse can provide.

As a side benefit, it's also much easier to understand, since newcomers don't have to figure out any of the stack-manipulation tricks, because they're no longer needed.

Oh, and it might let you change travel powers after you've realized that leveling with acrobatics gets painful once you're asked to traipse over large portions of the Desert or Canada to get to appropriately-leveled missions if you run out in MC. Which I'd call a Quality of Life improvement.

In answer to the question posed in the thread title:

I say OK.

Of course it could be improved, anything can, but it works fine now.

We now have lower costs, get: free retcons for veteran benefits, free retcons with major power passes, and a free retcon at 40. These options have made the current system more palatable. Also, from Cryptic's point of view if you make it too easy to retcon in game, then no one would buy the store's retcon token. That last alone is likely to make the devs reluctant to make any major changes to the system.

It's OK as is, though it is not great. Your system would only work with regard to travel powers, talents, innate and characteristic foci. The big whammy both cost and time-wise is on powers/advantages which are linked. Since that is the aspect that is most likely to want changing, and since the other stuff is taken early in a build anyways, I don't see much change even if the idea were implemented.

I think it might've been pretty neat if the one-power-at-a-time method wasn't stacked in the order you got them, but you could remove any power you wished for, but with an increasing cost, just like usual.
That way the system would still remain largely the same, but you're not forced to temporarily remove powers and advantage points not related to your intended changes.

The retcon system is fine; it's the way players use it that is broken.

From what I see, players use the retcon system to fix their personal past mistakes/FoTM builds and not to overcome changes in the game.

There is a very simple solution that actually lets you change and test all powers and possible builds at will, for free.

The Public Test Server.

I'd personally like to see Superstats and Talents on a separate tree than the powers and advantages. How many times are we fine with the powers we chose, but wish we had chosen more ideal superstats and Talents?

I am content with it as it is.

Can it be inconvenient? You betcha.

Can it be expensive? Darn right.

Can it be difficult? Certainly.

I don't think changing the nature of a character should be convenient, cheap or easy.

Why not?

Champions Online's big draw is customization -- you get to build the hero you want. Champions gives us incredible flexibility with appearance, even allowing multiple costumes. Champions gives us incredible flexibility with power selections, letting us cherry-pick from every power framework. But then Champions seems to punish players for making poor choices, or changing their minds, or having their power mechanics changed.

If Champions markets itself on creative freedom, how can we argue that changing one's character should be in any way difficult?

In my eyes, it flies against the spirit of the genre. Whenever a superhero changes that drastically, it is because of tumultuous events, up to and including death. It shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt, it should be an event, a thing that you remember, a pivotal point in your story.

And you can totally change your character. I just took took a dual blade toon to 40, and had another dual blade at 24. I wiped the lvl 24 character back to a blank slate and started over with another theme that fit the concept and hit the tailor. I totally re-customized the toon from the ground up. I haven't played another game that will allow you to do that at all. It's very cool that i could, but took enough energy and resources to make it meaningful.

If it becomes "oh, what'll i be today" with a button click, it loses significance.

And if you want to try builds out ad infinitum with no risk, there is the PTS. The option is right there, available to all members.