Ok, im confused on all this talk about skirmishers/raiders being nerfed with 7th ed. Aside from the ranking 5 wide thing, what rule change otherwise adversely affected them that I missed?
Cannot march in from board edge (ambush loses 5").
Multiple charges on skirmishers became worse.
Skirmishers could always march in 6th edition.
Characters are always pushed to the front of units in skirmishers (Not really a drawback, but a decrease in relative power to other skirmishers)
I think there was one or two more.
Don't forget meta-game. The following armies are likely to have models that will charge herds and not give rank bonus:
Daemons- If not a greater daemon, than a mounted herald
High Elves- Dragons, which are more common, chariots
Dark Elves- Hydras, dragons (which again, are more common than in 6th), heros on dark pegasus, lone assassins
Lizardmen- Stegadons (I have yet to see a single LM army without at least 1, vs in 6th where I rarely saw them except in lists looking for softer scores by not taking sallies), lone scar vets
VC- Varghulfs, lone characters w/ BSB
WoC- Characters on disks or mounts, giant, dragon (admittedly not taking so much)
Empire- Stanks, Walters
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Basic general trend is that in 6th edition, the idea of characters charging out of units into an enemy unit was most likely suicidal, but in 7th even heros can be brutal, especially now that the battle standard has no drawback and +1CR, and taking a steed carries virtually no disadvantage. The other big one being that nearly every army has a lone monster now that is very enticing.
In 6th edition, aside from chariots and treemen there wasn't much out there to even worry about outside of tourny builds (and even there, dragons were less powerful and more stigmatized). So on top of the 4 wide nerf, there are simultaneously a dramatic increase in the likelihood of your opponent being able to take advantage of it compared to 6th.
And Tactical wheeling, though I'm not actually sure if that was a rule in 6th ed or not, since I kinda skipped that edition...