This is a wild assumption, but I feel like throwing it out there anyway.
If the uncertainty is over a small portion of disgruntled veterans afraid to lose their progress, I'd like to ask Matt to not cave in to demands of a vocal minority of old players and and try his best to do what's best for the game.
Following needs of veterans and established community may be a right thing to do, but only when you have a stable community, a community that keeps the game alive. That's quite obviously not the case here.
Old playerbase isn't what's going to keep this game afloat, we're too few for that. A fresh, big, new community is needed in order to revitalize Fallen Earth. And to attract said community things have to change - in engine, in gameplay, in stability, most probably in game-design philosophies as well.
Do what you must to make the game as high quality and up-to-date with moder standarts as possible in order to attract people to a better and more relevant product. When it comes to keeping the game alive in the future - I believe that in the case with FE a minority of old players stiffling progress for their needs is secondary, if not outright irrelevant.