The Culture v's 40kverse

[MLai]

As far as Corrupting the Minds works I am assuming that they have some sort of presence or method of communication with the Physical World. Through that presence they can receive information and their instruments can become "blessed" by their new Patrons. The Chaos Gods do not need to physically "touch" someone to corrupt them -- except for Nurgle who is a really touchy-feely kind of God.

Not really, if you go by the logic of the Oldcron pylons. That logic is, you seal up the Warp from normal space and presto, no more Chaos influence.
By your logic, hey what about all the trillions of Chaos daemons still hanging around in normal space? They don't need a constant connection to the Warp, who cares if it's closed off they can still do Chaos-y things as much as they please.
But that's not the case.
Similarly with Culture Hyperspace. If the Mind even casually cuts off connection with normal space for a nanosecond, poof, it amputates whatever Chaos tendrils were exploring inside at the time.

Newcrons:
Feels to me like GW got inspired by Relic's representation of Necrons in Dawn Of War. And went in a stupid direction with a good inspiration.
Metallic Egyptians in SPAAAACE!! Cuz GW motto is direct Warhammer grafts, which is why we love Squats! Hey look a stargate err I mean a webway portal!

Me too, the story was never in need of work, just the rules and models.

I think it's the same problem as what ruined the DE for me. Too much change, too soon. A slow build up would work, and this massive change with no build up makes no sense. Then again, happens all the time in games. Check the tempo in M12 limited and Innistrad limited, for example.
tl;dr - it's not terrible, it's just different and bad.