Incoming long post!!!
First off, question: Why don't you guys do your podcast on Friday every week? It was exciting hearing you guys able to talk about the week's releases instead of just rambling along and responding to listener mail. Now you're saying you're going to do another episode in 2 days on the normal day, but really what's going to happen between now and then? After reading Flashpoint I'm actually pretty damn excited to pick up a few of the new books coming out next week but if I gotta wait two weeks to hear you guys talk about em how am I going to know which ones to get (read: the ones Brock hates

)???
Regarding Flashpoint, I'm totally with Higgins on it. I really liked it. I didn't read any of the minis. I don't give a rat's ass what Wonder Woman and Aquaman are beefing about in a (to me) pointless alternate reality. Barry and Thomas Wayne were the only main characters and stories I needed from the series and I got great resolution from both. I thought Flashpoint did a really good job of:
A. telling an entertaining, concise, easy to follow story (and this as a total noob to The Flash mind! What the fuck is a speed force?!)
2. telling a poignant, human story in regards to Barry's mom and Bruce's pop (Batman's tears are the manliest tears of all!) and,
d. bridging the gap to the reboot. Most importantly, it bridged that gap in a way that shows that the DC universe has the potential to be COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS and it basically spoke directly to me as a new reader by saying that "hey, it's ok to dismiss the past decades of all this ridiculous continuity because we can basically rewrite it all in the span of a few splash pages." It was a great way to wipe the slate of all the silly crises and black nights and bright days and whatever the hell else I've been missing out on.
To all that I say mission accomplished. I'm sure getting into the New 52 is going to be 110% possible without having read Flashpoint, but I'm absolutely glad I decided to and I'm actually more excited about reading DC now than I ever have been in my entire life. Even characters I previously cared all of fuck and all about like Supes, Bats and Flash.
Do I understand why "yet another alternate dimension" story would be unexciting to more jaded fans like Brock and Jinpei? Absolutely. I'm sure you guys deal with this stuff every other week, but as someone who literally read his first comic book with Flash in it yesterday, this satisfied. I do agree with Jinpei though that I would have loved to see more of this particular journey (that of Barry and Thomas) fleshed out in a longer mainline series instead of relegated to minis, but I think they needed to do it this way in order to keep more of their titles relevant in a month where they are (in their own words in the ed page) anticipating the question "Why buy DC comics in August?" They had to keep readers' interest spread over multiple books to keep sales up when existing fans knew the fresh start was coming.
Also as an aside to that, Brock I really hope you payed attention to Higgins' explanation as to why Flash's "new" suit, was his "normal" suit in his mind at the end of Flashpoint. The entire series was a bridge from old to new and the bridge also exists now, seamlessly, in the minds of the characters. Flash essentially created the New 52 in Flashpoint 5 when he knocked himself off the treadmill (

Flash runs on a treadmill to time travel!

).
I think that just about handles it. My thoughts on JL#1 were covered in its particular thread. I just wanted to chime in on the other half of this week's discussion. I dunno how long I'm going to be able to maintain the commitment, but I think DC might have succeeded in converting someone who acknowledges he's a really tough sell. As Higgins said in the podcast, I hope the existing fanbase is willing to put up with a little redundancy and put aside the old continuity (those stories aren't diminished by the fact that they don't "matter" in the New 52!) if it means making an honest push at some new readership.