I think it really depends on who they make it for. If it's for the weekend warriors and Mall-Terrainers it can be pretty much anything as long as it looks cool and works off road. If they plan on making it for mining corporations, military buyers, the UN and, well, Africa, then we may very well get a capable, reliable and easily repairable vehicle. Frankly, despite the increase in interest in overlanding, offroading and general outdoorsiness, I suspect the corporate and military buyers are a bigger market for a niche product. The role of the Defender in the LR lineup is, after all, to carry the torch of legacy and off-road capability so that the vehicles they actually sell - the baby Range Rovers and sporty Discos - have something to rub off on, without the legacy people might realize that they really are just paying for the privilege of having an oval-shaped logo on the back.
The other alternative is that it's too soft, nobody takes it seriously and they run with it for five years and nobody buys it because it's rubbish, it drags down the brand and they quietly kill it off after a while. Ooor... it's too soft for us armchair explorers or anyone remotely interested in an old Defender to care about it, but absolutely everyone and their grandmother wants one because it's a Defender that you can actually drive, after which they make it progressively softer until we have something called a Defender Sport, likely based on a Civic.
[/rend]