First post for me too, and from Italy too as Seppe76!
I have various thoughts:
1) speaking of orchestra parts, there's a version of Illumination Theory called Theory of Illumination, you can find it on the tube: basically, the orchestration is put at the beginning of the song and yes, it's a strange kind of progressive metal (stranger than having in the middle, for sure) but it works...
2) I hope that AVFTTOTW will have 20 minutes of real music: it kinda disappointed me when I discovered how much silence was there in the 22 minutes of IT
3) I still think there will be another song or two at the end of the album but I will be happy even with this 69 minutes of music
4) that terrible intro and vocal melody from the old A Change of Seasons (soure: the Images and Words demos)...