I don't have time to read all of the pages on this thread, so here are my thoughts:
I'm hoping to come back to Orlando late September for Pandora, new stuff at UO, and for HHN, so I'm really bummed I'll be missing DC by a few weeks. Oh well. At least I got to go on it a few times before its closure. I see the replacement as a double-edged sword. While I am stoked to see what they put in its place, it's a bummer for IoA to lose a more thrilling coaster for a less intense one. The ride is, however, a shadow of its former self from the late 90's with the removal of the queue and the lack of dueling, so in this case I see this as putting down the mangled dog….sorry if that illustration was pretty dark.
For what the coaster will be, out of the three being posted, I'm hoping it will be the SFX coaster. The Mack invert would make the ride more of a dark ride than a coaster. It wouldn't help that Forbidden Journey would feel a bit similar right across from it and that this would replace a legit coaster. They need to replace this with an actual coaster. The motorbike coaster with the side basket would be cool and I would not mind seeing that. It's just that there would be too much similarity to the upcoming Tron coaster at MK. The SFX is what the park could really use. If they go for that, I'm hoping it will use the dark ride scenes as the icing on the cake and focus on the roller coaster.