Amid flagging performance and a slumping stock price, Starbucks had been promoting its annual meeting as its chosen venue for unveiling sweeping changes.

So Howard Schultz, who returned as chief executive in January, tried not to disappoint on Wednesday, pulling broad changes from his bag of tricks, including state of the art machines, a brand-new coffee blend, and a social-networking website aimed at capturing customers' ideas for innovation.

But the 4 percent tumble in shares of Starbucks that day shows that investors are still looking for more answers to how the coffee chain will respond to shrinking margins and slowing sales.

Of the six initiatives unveiled at McCaw Hall in Seattle, the biggest headline grabbers revolved around machines: the Clover and Mastrena.

Starbucks announced that it would acquire the makers of the Clover machine, a buzzy new brewing system that provides French-press quality coffee on an industrial scale. That means customers will have the option for customized, individually ground and brewed coffee. Ethiopia Yergacheffe to order? You got it. Aged Sumatra in a flash? Coming right up.

"Demand will be the largest of any single initiative ever done," Schultz told reporters. "Every store manager in the system wants that machine, and they're not all going to be able to get them at the same time."

Starbucks also introduced a new state-of-the-art espresso machine called the Mastrena, which grinds every shot to order, nearly eliminates margin of error, froths milk better, gives greater customization options, and has a lower profile to allow baristas to see eye to eye with customers.

Along with new hardware, Starbucks unveiled a new coffee blend called Pike Place Roast (named after the location of the original Starbucks) which will become the everyday coffee in stores starting in mid-April.

Schultz claims it is the highest quality blend of coffee they've ever created—but the real kicker is that beans will now be ground at individual stores, rather than shipped ground as has become the practice in recent years.

The remaining three initiatives were slightly further removed from the beans themselves: additional benefits to Starbucks card users (various coffee freebies), a Digg-style social-networking site called mystarbucksidea.com, and an expanded partnership with Conservation International to bolster the company's ethical coffee-sourcing practices.

In other ways, the annual meeting was a big hit. The coffee and baked treats were ample and the staff was accommodating. K.D. Lang played acoustic guitar for a capacity crowd, and no less than three slide shows scrolled through images of happy baristas, happy coffee farmers, and even happy coffee plants, to the likes of "Here Comes the Sun" and a rock cover of "What a Wonderful World."

It really was a Starbucks affair, through and through, right down to the green-aproned Starbucks employees (er, "partners") handing out approximately 4,000 goody bags stuffed with mugs, CDs, Tazo Tea...you get the picture.

But while Wednesday's meeting was long on bright and shiny strategy talk—the focus on "coffee leadership" and "putting the romance back in coffee" came through loud and clear—it was short on the details.  

Schultz didn't pause long on questions of additional store closings, commodity prices, or plans to maintain margins. Some wonder how effective the initiatives announced on Wednesday will be at driving profit in the short term, especially given a retail environment that Schultz himself acknowledges is bleak. While fully bullish on Starbucks' ability to right its course, the company's chief characterized the U.S. economy as "in a tail spin," saying he saw no end to economic problems in sight.

"Perhaps we haven't witnessed in 30 years this level of pressure on the consumer," Schultz told reporters. "You've got Alan Greenspan saying the economy is in its worst condition since World War II."

And shareholders are skeptical as to how initiatives like a beefed-up loyalty card, mystarbucksidea.com, and the expanded partnership with Conservation International will move the needle in upcoming quarters.

"These are things that are going to cost money to do, and I know they're intended to get people coming to Starbucks more often, but I just don't see how it necessarily translates into higher sales," said Eric, a shareholder from Seattle who was present at Wednesday's meeting.

In a note published on Wednesday afternoon, Citigroup restaurant analyst Glen Petraglia kept his view on Starbucks unchanged, noting that there were positive changes afoot but no single answer to the company's challenges.

And then, on top of all those concerns, there's always the question of whether all of Starbucks' grand plans will even stick around. That's something about which August, another attendee at Wednesday's meeting, is wary. "Every year they announce these big plans, like with the Chantico and selling CDs in stores, and by the next year it's already gone," he said. "There isn't a lot of follow-through."