Active abilities in ME:A (Updated)

No, that's a new gun. Same principle, but new.
I get your point, but I doubt there will be different types of ammunition (if that's what you meant), all guns will surely use the same. I'd be dead surprised if it's otherwise.
My money goes for TCs and heat-system like in ME1 at best.

EA wants the "casual" crowd from shooters and none-RPGs. That is it. On the old forum someone linked an article with an EA exec giving an interview or a short statement which gave a hint to that.

Playing a video game at all could be described as a "matter of preference", you don't have to do it,
it's just your preferred way to entertain yourself - this is no different really.

The simple fact is that caster classes are very repetitive if you are forced to rely on a small amount of abilities.
Any kind of variation has the potential to make such a class much more enjoyable.

Ideally, different powers are meant to tackle different problems. Now admittedly, previous iterations of ME were rather terrible and unimaginative when it came to the core powers of some classes, which in turn led to many people simply sticking to the use of fewer powers, and repeating them ad nauseam.

Using that as an explanation for why a 3 power limit is a "good" thing, is ironic in the extreme.
Why? Because this reality was brought about  by incompetent design, not necessarily player choice.

So yes, Caster classes are objectively better if you have more "spells" to cast. This design is just developers idiotically aping games like "Destiny" or other games where shooting is the main activity and "Caster" classes are non existent, and forcing the MP style on the SP.

As for changing powers (or respeccing), first IIRC you are only doing that in the Tempest, and also, second, it's not really relevant to SP since you never know the kind of challenges you'll meet in the next mission, and it also does nothing to alleviate repetition during gameplay.

Not to mention that it makes very little sense, just like the system in DA:I, why do I need to forget how to use Throw if I want to use Singularity?

The bottom line is that any design that forces players to adhere to a very particular play-style, any design that severely limits player choice in a game that supposedly has RPG elements, is a flawed and arrogant design that caters only to a section of the player base and disregards the rest.

You might be among those that don't really care about this particular issue, but the next time it happens it might be with something that you do care about.

Doesn't look it does, in the last trailer they've been jumping around and had Overload, Flak and Flamethrower slotted. 

It's quite simple: the game is balanced around multiplayer with a game pad.

If you want chocies, get to the back of the bus.

I'd love to learn to play the games as fluidly as possible with this set-up and with as little pausing as possible. I really like it when the muscle memory works for me and the decisions are more subconscious.

I can certainly understand this beef but it seems they are trying to address it a bit with this change load on the fly kind of thing?

I also like the freedom of choice but to be honest I usually find in games that I end up just using about 3 powers anyway.