Umm, something prevents Chinese from writing the China-centered rules? Anyway, a new edition is a major rewrite no matter what.
I agree that it would essentially be a different game. I also think it would be cool to take the well researched approach they took with this game and work with scholars of various Chinese traditions to write. Obviously I don't think this is every going to happen but...it'd be great 
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actually medieval china had two sets of elements, and then the whole Yin-Yang Dichotemy. For Feng Shui there was metal, water, wood, fire, earth (constructive order), and for temple monoliths (there is a better word but I don't want to go look it up right now) there was earth, water, fire, and wind- this may have been religious or philosophical differences as well, the same way that western alchemists would add salt, sulpher, and mercury to the classic 4 elements to come up with the 7 elements of alchemy, or the way modern pagans add spirit as a 5th element. Of course each of these also has meanings beyond the physical substance itself- lightning depending on oriental tradition can belong to fire, air, or metal, and in alchemy salt refered to purity, sulpher to corruption and mercury to mutability in a spiritual sense.
I'd change the dice to d6. Compatibility with 5th edition would still be there (1d6+3 is roughly a stress roll, so 5th edition difficulties-3 would be 6th edition difficultirés). As it is, competence plays too small a roll and results are random, especially in skills.
We should also have simplified rules. Both FATE and Mage nwod 2e have shown that you can have magic systems that allow for unlimited possiblities without overburdening the user with maths:
Lab total: Perdo + Auram + Int + Aura + Inventive genius + Lab bonus + familiar int + familiar NT + shape and form boni + cyclic magic + focus + verditius extra boni = too much maths
We also need some rules against dump stats (str -3)
I'd also redo pre/com into one.
What I liked in 5th ed was the medieval flair.
I like the maths! (alhough I do teach university level physics/maths so maybe am not typical....)
Bob
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Although I can see where you're coming from in all these decisions, I kind of disagree with a lot of them.
I don't want to change the die rolls to a single d6. There's not enough variance, and you get too many outliers - more botches and more explosions - unless you get rid of those as options.
I really like the mathematical decisions I can make in spell design and numbers... but there are probably too much once you add in all of the extra books.
I do personally dislike people just over-minmaxing stats (Str -3 for someone who never leaves their lab) or virtues and flaws, but there are ways to deal with that in-game to punish bad players instead of denying the concept of someone so fragile they need to design an in-home assistant to help do their lab work.
I also don't like merging Pre/Com into one stat, unless you're also merging Int/Pre and Str/Stam and Quik/Dex. I think you'd do better getting rid of stats entirely, and just have bonuses for being good at someting (I have Great Strength! +2 to things strength is applicable to.)
Great conversation, everyone.
Folks who note that the on-ramp for new fans is a key commercial hurdle are right on the money, in my mind. Based on my experience, though, an on-ramp isn't the whole solution. You can't make nuclear physics easy by buckling down to write a super-ingenious, gloriously inviting how-to pamphlet.
I realize that this is not particularly useful in terms of "what would you change." 
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That's why there's a Big Red Button, so the president can get to the fun part of playing with nucular stuff without that boring physics stuff!
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One of the issues I've found is that Ars Magica is bound very heavily into its realism and simulationism - modified by magical intervention. An effect of this is that the game gets a lot of... depth and complexity. new systems added try to bind an effective real-world-simulation to game rules, and the real world is very complex, so A&A and C&G both delved very, very deep into making more numbers to fiddle with, and didn't give me fun new things to plug into my game.
I was very, very impressed with the work put into them, but I found it really hard to use any of the rules in my game because of adding unnecessary complexity to the mundane world in a game focused on the great works of wizards. I still used bits and pieces of 'how the world works' from those books, but avoided the rules-sets they added. We already have a situation where keeping accurate track of a covenant finances and resources requires multiple spreadsheets of data, including possibly advancement of the covenfolk crafters - if your covenant wants to write books (and they should, books are incredibly powerful to mass produce) you need scribes, bookbinders, and illuminators minimally, possibly parchment makers and ink-makers, and..... it gets pretty big. And then you realize you haven't accuratley tracked aging on one of your farmers, and find out he has a decrepitude score of 7.
Okay, that last part might just be me.
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No, there are limits to how much you can simplify a complicated topic. But I have a long-term pet peeve with game systems that aren't D&D clones (and can therefore assume someone else has done the tricky bits of explaining systems) which never produce a simple beginner adventure so that the new storyguide and players can learn what the system is supposed to look like. I see all these amazing games, full of great ideas and interesting mechanics, without any clue whatever from the producers how actually playing the game works. At that point the system is no better that White Wolf/Black Dog's HOL, where character creation was hysterically funny but no-one ever played the thing.
Ars Magica really needs a simple, fun 4 hour (one convention session) adventure for starting groups. Provide pre-gen characters, complete with histories and a summary of key abilities (especially those which are unique to that character from the set), and a clear narrative full of helpful call-outs explaining rules and possible actions. Make it easy even for casual high school groups to pick up, roll some dice, and find out what the game is about. Use just a tiny subset of all that Ars offers, so that the storyguide advice can cover most possibilities, but show off the amazing flexibility of the magic system while still keeping the game accessible. Heck, use box text and prop handouts. Don't start with the massive LEGO Technics set, full of gears and motors and possibilities. Begin with the Ars equivalent of a small movie tie-in box, with an attractive, easy to recognize picture on the cover, simple instructions, and a limited number of bits (some of which only fit in one place).
And shamelessly promote it, pushing for a flood of Actual Play sessions on YouTube. Get that nerdy kid (the one we all used to be) who got a copy of the core book for Christmas excited about the game, confident that she can provide her friends a fun one-night introduction to the game we love.
Then sell them the other 40+ books full of options, rules, and finicky bits. But get them hooked on the basics first.
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When we pitched the Apprentices book, one of my initial goals was to make a rules-light setting-light version of the game that would be perfect for starting groups and conventions. Unfortunately, we discovered during development that the nature of the 5th Edition ruleset meant that we couldn't change how anything fundamental worked for apprentices. But that's always seemed to me the ideal starting point for the game, whatever it looks like in the future.
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I'd also like to see an expansion of the simplified training package rules, first seen in Grogs and continued in Sub Rosa 11 and Sub Rosa 13. Not to replace the basic character creation rules, but to provide an easy jumpstart for new players (and busy storyguides creating NPCs).
Several of the recent versions of Shadowrun have had a similar option, a quick way to get a character built without making full use of the normal system. In fact, as the SR packages enforce a more well-rounded character, the trade of flexibility for ease can yield a slightly more powerful character in terms of how many points you start with. A package representing time at a university wouldn't just increase skills in your major field of study, they'd increase related skills that you'd reasonably learn during that time. BUT, the packages can't be edited to move points around. You get what you get.
The Ars equivalent, say a package representing Magister in Artibus, wouldn't just throw points at Academic Abilities and Teaching, but automatically include minor increases to Profession: Scribe, Area Lore: (university location) , and Etiquette (scholars). It might possibly even include a virtue such as Apt Pupil. The character would receive more points in abilities, at the expense of being able to narrowly tailor preferences.
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I have come around to the radical idea of treating Arts as Abilities. But then No Division for Spontaneous Magic. For the experience cost, you wind up at around two-fifth the score you would normally. With Stamina undivided, as well as the die roll, you wind up around equal to or slightly better than a divided total. Then for Formulaic magic, kick in a bunch of optional bonuses exclusive to Formula spells (other Abilities, etc).
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Personally I don't have a problem with having to divide by 2 or 5 when Spont'ing. But I agree it would be easier to not have to. Also, you don't get the situations of "Oh, I need to fish out 10 more bonus to get a magnitude higher".
But if Arts-on-the-Ability-Scale are 2/5 of what they are now, you'd need a bunch of boni added to reach the same numbers. Of course, you could say that Formulaic Magic uses double Art scores, that's most of the way I guess. Also, raising an Art means more impact on Casting Totals, although it is harder.
But this would mean there will be less spread in the Art scores of magi.
What could be done to handle Difficult Arts or Accelerated Abilities when everything rises as an Ability is fairly easy: just raise or reduce the difficulty targets (bases for magic).
The difficult thing for most people is the division. Don't divide the roll! Multiply the difficulty! (still more difficult than an addition though)
Similarly addition is easier for most while subtraction is more difficult. I try to add penalties to the ease factor and add bonuses to the roll. Only in opposed rolls is this complicating as boni and mali depend on the opponent's stats.
It also helps with the (not) issue of rounding. I know that the rules say to always round up, but sometimes it feels a little weird (personally speaking, of course).
Having said that, I'm not particularly invested in this 
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There isn't a good textbook on any subject that doesn't present motivating simple principles before digging into the nitty gritty details. Nobody requires a bottom-up QCD explanation of reality to understand Newtonian mechanics. Arguably that is counter-productive.
ArM needs just that though, a path to playing and learning that goes from broad principle to detailed finicking. This requires a modular and extensible design. Flat lists of V&Fs, spells, or abilities are the antithesis of this as they provide no decision guide, even though they provide a simple reference database. A good example of modularity and decision guidance in ArM are the lifepath packages in Grogs.
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A large part of my enjoyment of the game is out of game. Tinkering and exploring character options and development actively (as opposed to reactively through plot pressure) is largely attractive to me.
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FWIW,
Now that these forums are back up, a set of rules I think I posted some time ago that do this very thing (Arts advance as Abilities, difficulty multiplies for spontaneous magi, no division) are once again available.
These fit into AM5 reasonably well.... but I still consider overly cumbersome precisely because they fit into AM5 and inherit all the game's virtues and flaws. (Except for those modified by the house rules :).)
Oddly enough, I see the virtues of AM5 as a greater impediment to a good AM6 than its flaws.
Less oddly, D&D might not be the best designed game system, but it deserves consideration as the best redesigned system, with each major design iteration starting with 2->3 representing a willingness to raze the game to its foundation and build it anew.
Anyway,
Ken
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