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I do think that GW's doing a really lackluster job of trying to interest people in many of its SG product lines. The back few pages of the main games' rulebooks and a few pages in the codices/army books could attract a great deal of interest. For example, the main rule books would advertise taking the game to another scale, either clashes between armies or battles in space, and the codex ads would focus on expanding your collection of a race by exploring other aspects of their combat doctrine.
I imagine that Forgeworld could be used to good effect here. As with the Epic Tau, they could be made to produce a range (if sometimes a limited one) for every main Epic and BFG faction, which gives you something to actually advertise. As is, Epic simply doesn't hold a great deal of appeal for 40k Chaos and Tyranid players; they can't play Chaos and Tyranids.
Aside from increased exposure for SGs, I wouldn't touch them that much. The big changes would be to main systems.
The current system is counterproductive. Most Daemonhunters players would buy Marine models if they were released instead, most Lost and the Damned players would buy Guard, and there's probably a similar relationship between Dark Eldar and Eldar. However, with Daemonhunters and Marines both having codices and getting models, they're coming out with twice as many models and twice as many rules for almost the same number of sales. As well, and judging from the internet (not the best source, obviously), the tremendous wait between codex, model, and rule updates for a favored faction gives many players the free time to go look at one of the many fantastic systems that GW's competitors are producing. And, except for finding a game (they're not that popular yet), these games consistently get better feedback. GW can't afford to keep letting players slip away. There's going to be a tipping point where these other games are getting sufficient exposure by virtue of their increasing popularity to cause a mass exodus of 40k and Fantasy players.
So, the first step is to cut redundant armies. I only know 40k, so I can't speak for Fantasy, but the Inquisition's gone, specialist lists like Lost and the Damned are cut, and the Dark Eldar are so ridiculously unpopular that no one will miss them (provided GW makes some noises about doing it to provide better support to the other armies, and follows through on it). I could see cutting the Necrons, too. I'm tempted to cut the Orks (they don't seem to sell, and it seems that new players after a CC army go straight to 'nids), but that'd require a pretty thorough rewrite of the fluff, which wouldn't be at all popular. All the individual Marine Chapter codices are out.
GW should then place a great deal of importance on putting out quality rules. Listen to the more experienced of fans, make it clear that player opinions do make a difference, even consider putting up experimental rules or units on their website. Keep coming out with codices every 3 or 4 months and new editions every time all the codices are done (however, because there are only the Marines, Guard, Chaos, Eldar, Tyranids, Tau, Orks, and maybe Necrons to write, they get through a complete cycle every 3 years instead of every 5). Models for a faction are not released all together (I certainly don't want to be spending $200 all of a sudden when the new Eldar codex comes out, and I won't be - I'll just buy the ones I like best, and I'll probably have forgotten my need for the others as soon as the 'shiny' factor wears off); instead, releases for factions are put out at a fairly constant rate. New units would come out with new codices, when their rules are introduced, but updates to older figures would trickle out after. This gives players something to look forward to even when they got a codex six months ago and a rulebook update is two years off. It negates the need for specialist lists like the Inquisition, since I'll always have new models coming out for players to spend their money on. Now, I wouldn't eliminate things like the Grey Knights entirely - a WD somewhere (or the website) would, at some point, put up rules for using a squad of GKs as an Elites choice in a Marine or Guard army, but there would be no models (at least, not unless they proved ridiculously popular).
The real trick, though, is to enhance rule quality by harnessing fan power. I mean no disrespect, and I greatly appreciate what many of you have done for SG, but, from GW Corporate's perspective, you're a bunch of suckers. They've put one or two staff on SG, and all they have to do is occasionally pump out more minis from existing molds and let you unpaid players keep the rules fresh and balanced and grow interest in the game. Epic is free money for them at this point; they don't care what happens to it. There are a bunch of players on a bunch of forums with really good ideas, far better than what many of GW's paid devs seem capable of coming up with, and they're willing to work for nothing. If GW were to go up to Bolter and Chainsword and ask their moderators to compile a list of suggested changes for a new Marine codex that adequately represent the desires of the Marine community, they'd probably end up with something fairly high quality (and better edited than what they do themselves). After that, posting up experimental rules for playtest also takes a great deal of pressure off of GW. Internal playtest ought to be sufficient to correct the more egregious imbalances, and you're all set. Over the six months after codex release, you figure out whether anything's working oddly, and you issue a FAQ to fix it (this too is something that many forums would be more than happy to do - I'd tend to trust dakka). They'd have lower costs, better rules, less redundancy in the model range, and a more efficient sales model.
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) wouldn't result in SG profits exceeding this investment in advertisement.
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