I think this was done as much for gameplay flow as anything else. The main criticism of the older model was that you had to manage combat in 3 separate, and onl

I think this was done as much for gameplay flow as anything else. The main criticism of the older model was that you had to manage combat in 3 separate, and only mildly overlapping, planes which made combat a time-consuming pain to track. Lots of playgroups would discourage people from playing deckers or mages just so they wouldn't have to deal with astral plane/matrix stuff.