Not that quick, FlashFire...
But it's not supposed to be as long a reign as John Paul II, either.
Benedict will probably reign for 5-8 years, then there'll be another conclave after his passing. Assuming all hell doesn't break loose in the meantime, at that point the Cardinals will have figured out where they want the Church to go next.
It's not as dramatic as people are saying (such as Andrew Sullivan). Yes, Benedict is conservative. However, that's applying a label that doesn't really apply within the Church. Within the wider world, all of the Cardinals are conservatives, because Catholic doctrine has become conservative, and they believe in the doctrines of the Church.
He's not the enforcer Darth Vader that he may have appeared in his previous post. That post (the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) demands that you be an enforcer hardass. As it's responsible for the doctrine of the Church and slapping those priests and theologians who err on that point, that's rather the purpose of the job.
At the same point, North Americans and Europeans should not expect that their particular concerns will matter a damn. The Third World makes up a large proportion of Catholics these days; the Church is withering in Europe, and it's not doing much better in North America. Finally, for the most part, much of their requests violate centuries if not millennia of settled Catholic doctrine, and many in Africa and Latin America would be bitterly opposed to any change on those issues.
That said, he's not (and never was) a Nazi, either. I actually think we may see some gains on ecumenical matters in this Pontificate, or at least no losses.
In short: Benedict XVI has no mandate to really change course, but rather to keep things on course for now.
Then again, who knows.