I did find it hilarious, they reused an element from Umbrella Conspiracy and the Romero script, in that there is a PDA that has maps and such on it. I'm thinking it was more a reused element from the Romero draft than anything else.
Yeah, i thought that too! I hope Roberts will say something about it in interviews or anywhere else, i think it's cool little easter egg for some of the fans who read those.
As for the movie, i liked it more for just being a solid horror film with decent action scenes, rather than RE adaptation. I'll definitely watch it again, and i can see myself liking it at least little more over time for same reasons. I agree with people who said that first half is very good setup and at times very John Carpenter-like, and it does have this B-movie feel which i know Roberts was going for, but at the same time i can understand why many people would complain about pacing and the look and feel of it. And i thought the score by Mark Korven was surprisingly very good. I can't defend some issues that the scripts has and some character decisions, which i know will annoy lot of people, but if there are any bigger complaints i have about it, well one would be the CGI which really is not that good and i wish they used more practical effects, but then again, you never know would the movie got The Thing (2011) treatment by the studio even if they did used more practical effects. Other complain would be the running time, and i might be one of the only few who feels this way, but i wouldn't mind if the movie was longer, maybe full two hours long, and with some more scenes explaining the story and characters, and at least one or two more creatures i always wanted to see onscreen, like Hunters, Chimeras, or Crimson Heads.
Right now, when it comes to RE adaptations, produced or unproduced, Romero's script is my favorite, followed by this film, McElroy's script, and Anderson's 2002 film. I would recommend it to RE fans and anyone else who loves horror and zombie films, but i would warn them to go into it with low expectations.