Phil,
In regard to priviledges AFTER April 14th, new Generals do not have access to the Advanced portions of the bands. General priviledges have not changed. But, when you upgrade from General to Extra now, you gain both the Advanced priviledges and Extra priviledges.
So, let's say I only have my Tech ticket (which is true right now). I go and upgrade to General, I gain all of the old General priveledges, and that's all I gain. Then later, when I upgrade to Extra, I gain all of the old Advanced priviledges and all of the old Extra priviledges combined. As far as NEW licensees, Advanced and Extra priveledges are lumped together. You are just skipping the step of upgrading to Advanced to get Advanced priviledges.
Of course, like mentioned in the other post, all of the OLD priveledges haven't changed. If you hold an old Advanced ticket, pre-April 14th, you haven't gained or lost any priviledges.
From what I read on ARRL, if it's true, if you are a Tech now and pass your element 1A, you gain Novice HF priviledges, although you cannot become an actual Tech Plus anymore. I don't intend to do that, but I thought I would throw it in for good measure

Dave