RPG design is an interesting dilemma and, yes, rather depressing these days.
You have to decide how much should be provided to the user as hard rules, how much should be provided as flexible rules, and how much you just don't explain at all and let them figure out for themselves. Part of doing this is deciding who your target audience is. Old time gamers want flexibility because they've pretty much figured out where things are going to break with their particular gaming style. It's a toss up on spoon feeding the why's of a particular games design or letting the customer put their own spin on it. Take the various forms of magic... do you give a specific and detailed reasoning behind the realms, or do you leave it vague and let the gamer insert their own theory? As someone said already, we aren't the crowd to ask either. We're pretty much mostly hard core/fanatic table top gamers here.
"In the day" there was a decent enough sized customer base that RM could be a modest success (in the top 5 or so) on what we would consider veteran gamers coming from other RPGs. There were a number of companies that could probably have lived off their RPG alone, but much of their customer base originated with D&D. D&D might still have been a product that could keep a company alive on it's own back when TSR was first aquired by WotC, but there's no way that could happen today in my opinion. I don't know as if Hasbro is capable of turning D&D into what is was under pre-Hasbro WotC (let alone it's heyday with TSR). Most of my reasoning on that is because WotC is no longer controlled by table top gamer (i.e. Peter)... it (D&D) is run like a business these days and, given the state of the RPG industry, Hasbro probably doesn't see it as good business. Partially their own fault, but the downfall of Table Top RPGs started with the downfall of TSR in my opinion. Pre-Hasbro WotC started to turn that around... but as I said, the gamer control of D&D dissapeared shortly after Hasbro took over (pretty much because Hasbro quickly started sticking their fingers into stuff they said they wouldn't).
Anyhow... my point is that if you want to survive as a Table Top RPG you have to draw in new customers. With D&D not being successful enough to leave a sizable number of scraps laying around the ways to do that are to try and get the 'old guard' to start passing on the tradition, which I don't see as a very reliable marketing strategy (although it should not be ignored) or to try and start appealing somehow to today's non-D&D 'gamer'. How do you appeal to today's gamer becomes the question. I don't like the answers that pop into my head when it comes to that question. D&D, as much as I hate to say it, probably did what I would have done - figure out how to appeal to online gamers. WoW is currently the most attractive critter for leeching off of.
Someone mentioned that computer gamers are also table top gamers. I don't believe that. I believe most table top gamers are also computer gamers, but I do not believe the opposite is the case. If it were I think the customer base of WoW alone could drive a healthier Table Top RPG industry then we have right now.
So, the answer I hate... you need to appeal to online gamers if you want to live long term. You could go after an entirely new market (non table top or online gamers), but how do you draw them in? You'd probably need a nice juicy license for something like Star Wars, Star Trek, Game of Thrones, Middle Earth, getting more modern maybe James Bond, Twilight (*gag*), or maybe sci-fi with Firefly or Farscape. And you're going to have to advertise like hell. Who can afford to do that? Companies that aren't just RPG companies. What if Blizzard licensed WoW? Then you might have something.
Ok, I've rambled enough... the point is if RM wants NEW customers (non-table top gamers or not) I believe it needs to give the appearance of being simplified. It doesn't necessarily need to be simplified, it just needs to look like it has been. RM2 was never a cohesive system and eventually became a mess. It was very newbie unfriendly. RMSS, even though done fairly well, suffered from RM2's reputation so you couldn't get enough new people to try it and the RM2 users, mostly being veteran gamers, didn't really need a new RM. RMFRP was just, well... strange. I myself don't understand the reason for it. It just didn't seem different enough to justify starting over from RMSS and I think it ticked off a lot of RMSS users (even though we don't complain a lot about it). RMC came along when things were pretty much doomed, although it was a cool thing for many of the RM2 users.
What now? Continue RMFRP? Continue RMC? Both? Create a new RM? Really tough choices. But if RM is to survive as a viable product (and not just a side hobby of the owners) I think it needs to take the stuff both the RM2 and RMSS crowds liked and create a new RM from that foundation, but also try to focus it towards the online gaming crowd somehow. It's too bad Dark Age of Camelot didn't work out better for ICE 2.0, but I think there's still a possibility for some publicity there if it's legally possible... might be a good starting point.