Why?

7th Sea is a great game. But it completing 12 years of age and some cracks are starting to show. Anyone who has played it for a while will tell you that some mechanics could use a little redo. Some because they became too laborious after the release of so many new books (for example, the skill and knacks system), others never worked properly to begin with (active defenses being to difficult to execute). I don't think I know one GM who hasen't come up with enough house-rules to fill a few pages.

But is a new edition necessary? Well, the core of the R&K system was never a problem, but the relationship between skills and knacks is a big one, the way I see it. An uncontrolable number of skills, each to handle a little minutia of what heroes might be attempting was standard to RPG's in 1999, but since D&D 3.0 introduced condensed skill sets, that has no longer been the case.

And to re-work that very big part of the core mechanics means to touch up the Combat System, adjust Swordsman Schools, Sorceries, etc.

And that's why. I hope we don't get side-tracked in the way.