Also, Sigrun and Freydis Gard are both pretty cool persons underneath their warrior women role. I don't see how Murphy would not fit right in with them.

Harry got imprinted with the shadow of a Fallen Angel, spent years with her inside his skull.
He died -- dead enough to ghost-around for days -- and came back to life.
He's saddled with the personality-warping influences of a Winter Mantle.

And yet, you say, Harry's still Harry at his core.

But you seem adamant that Murphy cannot still be Murphy...?
I don't see anything to prevent her from still being herself (given the precedents that Jim has written)... except that you don't want her to be.

Yeah, I don't see either why she suddenly would stop being Murphy, only because her circumstances have changed. A person is defined by her outlook on life, how she treats with others, how she feels about herself. While some of those facets would of course be altered by dying and being brought back (Harry sure did have to adjust), at her core Murphy would still be herself.

  However Harry didn't change, he always had magical talent, and when his brain was occupied with Lasciel's shadow, he had to deal with rage issues then as well when it came to Hell Fire. With the Winter Knight's Mantle he got a bit stronger, and had to deal with primal urges he didn't have before, but he got a handle on them and remained Harry.
There you are mistaken, a Holy Knight has no "power," not of his or her own anyway, the angel of the Sword works through them, strict rules apply, as Murphy sadly found out.  However the whole time she wielded the Sword, she was merely a vanilla human, as Michael,Sanya, Butters, and Shiro are.  Susan was the exception since she was half vamp, however the Sword didn't effect that one way or the other.  So Murphy was a mere vanilla human until the day she was murdered, it only seemed like she had power because she was being turned into Wonder Woman.  There are rules for Odin's soldiers and for Valkyrie as well that cannot be broken.  If she gets power and comes back she will have to play by a new set of rules, from a new perspective, she won't be the same person.
Her body perhaps, but it won't be the Murphy you remembered and loved.  True, you could love her more, or sadly you may wish that Jim had let the dead rest in peace.

Okay, I don't know how to have a good discussion with someone who clearly has a different definition of what constitutes a "person". I didn't like Murphy because of her "function" as the normie of the group, I liked her because of her personality, of her way of interacting with people. If she came back with Valkyrie powers and some conflicts of loyalty, that would not change her basic personality, that would just add conflict to her relation with Harry. Her intrinsic value to me as a character is not in her position as the "one without powers" in Dresdens coterie, but in what she provides as a person. So, sorry, but I don't put much trust in your predictive powers, which you clearly are trying to exercise here. Murphy will be as much the same person after returning as Harry was after coming back from being nursed back to health by Mab.

As the old proverb says, "be careful for what you wish for, you may get it!"  If she does come back, you can bet it is only to make Harry suffer more..

Everything is designed to make Harry (and through him, us) suffer more. As Jim said in the Q&A, he doesn't get to torture the readers, so he does it to Harry. 

Was Bradley at the site of the shooting?
I thought he was with the kids.
I need to re-read BG!

Apparently he was away, as vincentric pointed out. My bad, I misremembered that (it's been a few year). However, he still promised Harry that Rudolph would be brought to justice, because he saw Murphy's corpse before she was yoinked to Valhalla. Honestly, Rudolph is more secure being imprisoned than if he'd skate on a technicality, because Harry would not let that go. I guess we'll see in Twelve Months.

But that becomes a "roll your eyes" problem, I know that is difficult for her devoted fans, but there it is.  It was beginning to become a problem for the story, Murphy, yes, good at hand to hand combat, but as she gets older and injured still takes down just about everyone? Suddenly she all the wisdom of the world? I could go on, but that was the problem, she stopped being realistic, it was more give me a break... That's why Jim had to kill her off, and if she is brought back too soon, what's new there? Other than as one of Odin's fighters she does what she always did? Her fans will love that I know and respect that, but in my opinion it hurts the story.

Yeah, well, you're a known "not fan" of her, therefore I have to politely point out that your opinion is therefore also quite biased. Personally, I'd rather see her brought back rather sooner than later, but even then it will probably be only after Mirror Mirror, i.e. in three books at the soonest. Which seems plenty time to me, especially with Jims writing rythm still not being what it was (and the books getting longer and longer as well).

That she will return is now a certainty for me and Jims comment to my question in the Q&A indicated to me that it won't be without Murphy herself working on it from her side, which indicates it won't be just before or during the BAT. That may be optimistic expectations on my side, but Jim put up the barriers around Harry to prevent him from entering any serious romance (i.e. magic chastity belt for Molly, Lara being a dead fish romantically) for the time being.

I mean, Murphy is a devout (or maybe a bit lapsed, due to events of the last years?) catholic, you'd think Uriel would at least have a word with Odin about having snatched her up for his version of the afterlife.

He is a police officer, his word has weight.

He committed manslaughter and was turned in by a fellow police officer. His word has therefore zero weight with the authorities.

Also, how much "space" Murphys return would take up is highly mutable. I'd happily give up all the space Dresden dating Lara will fill.

On the general subject of Q & A, was there anything in the recent podcast of significance? I no longer drive long distances for business, and find that I don't have the patience to just sit and listen to folks talk.

The only thing I remember from it which was new is that Jim apparently had to deal with a stalker just in the recent years. Which sucks, of course.