Without having been in beta, and just from what info we have, GoD seems disappointing to me as well. I'm 99% sure I'll be getting it for my 65 warrior, if the proc AA ends up being good (curse relying on the rng for agro). But it doesn't sound like it's going to be that good of a release. Here's how I see it:
It's an expansion for the 55+ crowd. That to me sounds like Velious 2.0. Velious is a great expansion in my mind, but as I understand it, it was disappointing on release. The dungeons are well thought out and look very nice, with tons of atmosphere. The non-raid content is pretty poor, but if you were in a high end raiding guild it presented lots of challenges and entertainment (3 raid worthy factioned zones, lots of important gear upgrades, very high end raid targets, an important keyed zone, and plenty of dragons to kill). Basicially if you were high end at the release, sounds like it was a playground o' fun. If you weren't, then you missed out on the fun.
GoD is sounding an awful lot like this. Sounds like the 50's crowd gets to play in the sandbox of trash mobs, while the real zones are for Elemental and Time strength guilds. Once these guilds tear through their half-dozen raid zones they'll still be crying for content, while guilds who aren't EP or better are forced to stand on the sidelines wishing they had more useable content in the expansion too.
Let's talk non-raid content a second. Right now, for 55+ folks, there really are only two options. One is PoP, king of XP. Other is LDoN, which is less xp but yields AP for upgrades. How does SoE encourage people moving to GoD then? If you make the xp better than PoP, there is zero reason to be in PoP then. If you make it less xp, there has to be a reason for people to take a hit in XP. Without a system like LDoN to reward people for taking the less xp route, the only other possible solution I can see is gear. Seeing what kind of gear pre-elemental PoP offers (ornate for example) and LDoN gear available (better than ornate plate armors and great augments for example) it would take a significant jump in gear, obtainable in single groups, for people to migrate to GoD. Honestly, I don't see either of these happening, which doesn't bode well for this expansion.
Then, there is the berserker class. Everything I've heard so far is bad, bad, bad. Bringing a new class into what is currently considered the most out-of-balance subset of classes (melee) is a terrible idea. Either the class is balanced the way melee should be right from the gate (causing a glaring difference between the melee classes) or it's broken right out of the gate. You can imagine which one it is.
I'm still reserving judgement on the new Leadership abilities, but to me this again seems like a pain. I can already imagine the "key" classes for groups (especially clerics) refusing groups unless they get to be the leader and earn points. I have a feeling it's going to cause many problems.
GoD seems a new LoY without handy tools (ie in-game maps) and a versitile new PC change (Frogs have tons of class choices, including the only ones who can be SHM or CLR). And since GoD is likely going to be the last EQ expansion before EQ2, maybe SoE's releasing a half-hearted effort in hopes of pushing more people to EQ2.