Wow, I didn't notice any of the differences until the pics/gifs... haven't watched the old trailer in quite a while. Good stuff. July 11th, with the new trailer, is going to be glorious.
I'm probably the only one here who doesn't want this game to be out this year... whatever development stage they're at, the more time to polish the better. Spring 2008 sounds perfect. Also, no matter how great the game will be, it'll still be overshadowed by GTA4/Halo 3... Those two games are the definition of mainstream, and both are coming out within weeks of each other. I'm not going to complain though if it does arrive this fall.