I only just caught this thread. It looks like it's had some random posts deleted on the first page too?
C2 is fast superseding Classic in every way. I do think it will exceed Classic in every way eventually, such as having sprite distortion (disclaimer: not saying I'm working on it any time soon, just I'm sure it'll turn up eventually). There's already an API for accessing a sandboxed filesystem in Chrome, but I haven't implemented it yet because it's very much just a Google experiment at the moment and it's not clear if it will become standard.
C2's architecture is vastly superior, and it's far better written and a lot faster, even than native code on some systems. I know that's not true of older systems, but look to the future: today's devices are the old junk of tomorrow, and fast forward a few years and it will be true for almost everyone. Why think about other technologies when it's clear eventually that will be the case? Something like haxeNME could see us maybe a 5-10% performance increase for 6-12 months work - it's totally out of the question - and in the same time HTML5 technology would probably improve so much as to exceed those gains, making the whole project pointless.
I noticed recently Classic doesn't work out of the box on Windows 8 (not sure about 7). There's a security update on Windows Update you need to install before it starts up, because we screwed up some of the dependency management. The reality is it's very unlikely Classic will see any more maintenance. The future is very much cross-platform mobile. Yes, there are problems, such as Android's stock browser sucking really badly. But Chrome Beta for Android has amazing WebGL support. You really can get a 60 FPS game on a phone or tablet, with shader effects and all. Android systems are now outselling Windows systems. The market is moving on. Windows-only is dead (at least in exporting - I know C2 as an editor is Windows-only, and we're thinking about changing this in the long term - disclaimer: again not working on this any time soon).
Tradition changes, and technology moves on. I strongly encourage everyone to upgrade to C2 if you're still on Classic. If there are quirks or missing features or things you miss, post about it in the C2 discussion forum and we can talk about how we can improve C2. We're doing approximately weekly updates, and HTML5, especially WebGL, are getting pretty damn awesome at the moment.
The way things are going, eventually these forums will fall silent and we'll probably see fit to discontinue Classic completely. We're not doing that now, because it's virtually zero work to leave these forums running and people still use them. But I think it's inevitable.
If you're worried about C2 being commercial and having a price tag, I would have to point out: the only reason Classic is free is because we worked it in our spare time as volunteers while students. We lived off our student loans. I'm not a student any more, and luckily I get to do this professionally, which is great. But like everyone else that means you have to make money or not do it at all. So I don't think it's unfair. If we had started Classic a few years later, it probably would have a price tag too. So I guess just count yourselves lucky it was free!