I am following this thread with interest, and one common statement is about making the cars faster. I think everyone may have missed something significant to do with the speed of the cars around the tracks.
Look at the Q1 times of the cars at the GP 2 weeks ago. You will note that Button was within a hairs breadth of his pole time from 3 years ago, and he couldn't even make it out of Q1, let alone get into the top 10. Now would someone tell me why they believe the cars this year and last are slower than their predecessors?
I agree that they may be concentrating on the wrong things in the regulations though. The problem is that it is obvious from this thread that about 50% of the people will be disappointed with the outcome. The call is either for the cars to go faster, the cars to be easier to overtake by reducing aero reliance or both at the same time. The issue is that just adding more power is not going to make the cars faster, as most of the time lost at present is through the corners and not down the straights, so yes, you will get a faster car in a straight line, but you need more grip in the corners to make that work in terms of a lap time.
Also, making the cars easier to overtake means a reduction in the reliance on the aero components. This make the car slower in the corners and means less power being applied coming out of corners unless you can massively increase the mechanical grip. It is in no way possible to replace the lost aero being relied upon with mechanical grip if you are trying to remove the dirty air issue you have these days, at least not without the addition of things like active suspension, ground effects, traction/launch control, ABS or other technical wizardry that is currently against the rules.But allowing all these things back into play within the cars design removes the skill level required by the driver (assuming it all works as it should). So you end up with processional races with position determined by the engine power and not the driver skill (or at least the balance of requirements tips a long way in that direction).
Should the manufacturers be allowed to produce engines with more power? Of course they should. Merc have already demonstrated on their test beds they can give up to 1000bhp from their existing engine with the same reliability just by changing the fuel flow allowed.
So the next question is how do we let the teams apply that power to the road? To me the answer is simple, it is not more regulation it is less. Simplify the restrictions placed on the teams with regards to angles, wing sizes and a whole host of other things. Lets let the designers design and come up with new and wonderful ideas like they used to in the past. Stop the slow progression towards all the cars being the same other than the engine and lets go back to the good old days when people may have had crackpot ideas that didn't work, but at least they were doing something inside the rules that was different to try and beat the other teams.
In short, change the rules to tempt people like Adrian Newey back into F1 with the promise that he gets to be creative in the way he designs things, and that every idea he has is not going to get banned at the first opportunity. Also let the engine designers do the same within a set amount of fuel for a race and limit on power output. If Merc can give you 1000bhp with using half the fuel of a Ferrari engine then why not let them?
Lap time goes up by up to two seconds a year without any legislation. And the FIA has spent the last 5 decades tirelessly trying to keep a lid on lap times in the interests of safety. Quicker lap times will not help overtaking in the slightest. It will make it far more difficult and dangerous, accidents will be far more dangerous, tyre failures will be far more dangerous... what am I complaining about? ... kill the freaking lot of 'em! 
Will it be safe? ...To drive I mean."
"Don't be a freakin' idiot of course its safe."
because they're young. Enough already! 
