[quote name='opportunity777']
If games do not carry over, then Strell will be forced to go berserk and eat little children or something if his Wii dies, and the VC downloads are lost forever.[/QUOTE]
First off, I just want to say it's awesome I get a nod for no reason.
:]
While I'm going to venture that your predictions are indeed right, I just want to say that there's no precident for Nintendo allowing/disallowing digital downloads to carry over to their next system.
Your retort would be "well you can't do that now with a refurb/replacement if your Wii dies," but I have heard that you can. You just have to call them up and tell them that you know they have the ability. I can confirm that they do, but I know it tends to be YMMV.
I do know that even if they do, your Miis come back with some sort of nebulous creator bestowed upon them, which then requires this really roundabout way in order to get them such that you can edit them.
If Nintendo does prevent me from moving the downloads - and again, given their past, they probably will - then yeah, that will suck. I keep hoping we'll someday reach a more amiable plateau for this sort of thing.