Just thought I would add 2-3 inputs from Naveenan and Vimal (my colleagues at 2iim who run the centers at Mumbai and Bangalore respectively).
Importance given to verbal ability has increased: Verbal accounts for 50% of the exam now, up from 33% previously. Being merely quant-strong will not be enough to crack this exam. Students need to look at Sentence Correction and critical reasoning more aggressively
Stamina will count for a lot now: In the past editions, students had the advantage of changing sections mid-way, front-loading reading components, shuffling within a paper, etc. Now, a student will spend 2 hours before starting the exam, then spend 70 minutes doing quant, and then start the first verbal question. By the time you near the end of the verbal section, you would have spent more than 220 minutes staring at a computer. If you are the kind that gets tired reading RC passages, then you will have to work a lot on improving stamina.
The other point that emerged from discussions is the fact globally exams are converging on one pattern. India is moving towards lowering primacy given to DI/LR exactly at the point of time GMAT/GRE are increasing importance to DI. So, perhaps we are reaching a middle-ground where patterns are beginning to converge.