No course reversals, no procedure turns, no DME arcs, no feeder routes. So Long MSA If obstacles aren't a factor, the TAA will be designed with only one minimum IFR altitude. However, there are always locations where terrain, airspace or air traffic requirements won't allow a single practical minimum altitude. Some TAAs will be divided like slices from a pie or perhaps a step-down arc will be included. To keep things refreshingly simple, there will never be more than three sectors in the outer area and no sector may be less than 30 degrees in spread.
Current specs allow for only one step-down arc.
Indeed, the TAA altitude is somewhat similar to the use of the MSA in other countries. Within the TAA, you can safely descend to set-up a comfortable vertical transition to the instrument approach. If it works as planned, the transition from random route cruise flight to the initial approach fix will be simple and the approach itself won't have procedure turns or overlay the serpentine routes of underlying ground-based navaids. In short, the TAA is what GPS has promised but has yet to deliver. There are a couple of flys in the ointment.