>>1003That's probably closer to what McQuarrie envisioned, too.
The problem with culling things from cut material from the old films is that, for better or for worse, those things were cut for a reason, and reinserting them into the new Star Wars paradigm means changing them to work with things they were never intended to work with. Sure R2 was originally meant to balance on a ball, but had that design gone through, he wouldn't have been the same little astromech droid we learned to know. Now BB-8 exists and by necessity he's a little of both. R2's head on top of a ball, which just looks like a silly parody of both designs.
I get why they look back at old concepts, it's mining the original creative source that spawned Star Wars for more ideas. That way, you know the movie will "feel" similar to the old ones. However, whenever the prequel trilogy did this - bringing back concepts from the original drafts of SW '77 (Mace Windu) or early universe bible material that never really manifested anywhere (midichlorians, the Sith) - it always felt a bit ingenuine. Come up with an original idea already!
That being said, I'm keeping an open mind about BB8 because I love astromech droids and their lore. Helps that he's a cute little thing.
I'm very impressed that the prop is apparently real (and remote controlled!).