Actually, I agree with most of this. Remember, both the author and I are sympathetic with Wright, but think he got some things wrong. In particular, I agree with him on Paul's definition of righteousness, but I think Calvin is right on justification. Whether Wright is any different I'll mention below.
1. Of course in criticizing Wright's covenant he's also criticizing the WCF, as he notes. But I'm not sure how serious the criticism is. He says that a covenant is an actual agreement, and not just God's purpose to be gracious. But the passage from Wright that he quotes says that the covenant is God's plan to use Abraham and his family to bless the whole world. God did have a covenant with Abraham, and Paul refers to it. If you believe the later prophets, God did intend to bring all people into that covenant. Perhaps he's being slightly imprecise to use "covenant" to refer to what God intended to accomplish with the covenant.
3. Even if Gal 2:16 is the faithfulness of Christ, Wright agrees that other passages say we are justified by faith. Indeed if the passage says we are justified because of the faithfulness of Christ, this would be Wright's equivalent of Calvin's claim that we are justified because of Christ's obedience (as part of Calvin's discussion of the atonement). It would be a problem if he denied that we are justified by faith, but of course he does not, because there are other places where this is clearly what Paul says.
Oddly, both the Beveridge translation of the Institutes and Pringle's translation of Calvin's commentary of Galatians translate "the faith of Christ," not faith in Christ. Calvin's actual comment on the passage seems consistent with either translation.
4 and 5. I agree that there's a problem with Wright's treatment of the tradition. I noticed this myself when I read the book. He seems to claim that he's saying something new when as far as I can tell what he's saying is nearly identical to Calvin. However I don't see any problem with referring to the "great tradition, from Augustine onward." Augustine did in fact use justification in a way different than Paul. And following him, so did the medieval tradition and so do Catholics now. Furthermore I think Wright is correct that many conservative Protestants (although not proper Reformed Protestants) do at times use justified to mean saved.
But I think Wright's treatment of Calvin is open to criticism. He thinks that Calvin uses justification to indicate how you get into the covenant, where Paul means it as identifying who is already in. I think he's oversimplifying what Calvin says. Calvin does talk about justification as how you get in, in that at times he speaks of justification as virtually a synonym with forgiveness, and acceptance by God. Yet McGrath's summary of Calvin's ordo salutis is that for Calvin, the union with Christ comes first. We participate in it by faith, and faith leads to both justification and sanctification. I also think this is present in Calvin. In this case, particularly when you take election into account, I think it's reasonable to say that we are already members of the covenant before we have faith, and thus that justification is more about our public status, i.e. it is an acknowledgment of a status that already exists. This version is consistent with Wright's model. Reformed theology speaks of the step before faith as "regeneration." My reading of Romans is that Paul uses justification to cover a range of meaning that can include both being accepted and the public acknowledgement of our acceptance. Indeed the lawcourt metaphor includes both, since a verdict of innocent is both a public vindication and a change of legal status. I think Calvin captures both aspects of this. Yet Wrights distinction does have some merit. God has already accepted us when he elects us, so the justification that follows faith is really a public proclamation of that acceptance, i.e. in Wright's terms a "recognition that we are in". There's a whole set of complexities here that Wright simply doesn't deal with.
6. When combined with 5, one wonders how well Wright knows the Reformed tradition. Note that Wright is primarily a NT scholar. That's a lot of merit to McGrath's comment that it seems that theologians and NT scholars don't talk to each other. One thing good about Wright is that he's a good NT scholar who is trying to help people work through the theological implications of NT scholarship. However he is not as strong on the history of doctrine as NT. A number of people are trying to enlighten him. We'll see if it has an effect.
7. I suspect he's wary of substitutionary atonement for the same reason I am. There's a lot of bad history there, which in the popular mind makes God out to be someone who demands blood, and doesn't much care whose. I see Paul's primary concept of the atonement as being based on the idea that through Christ we die to sin and are raised to new life. Obviously there is substitution going on, and there are penal aspects, as is clear from the NT use of Is 53. But that's not the whole thing. Calvin says that the atonement results from the whole course of Jesus' obedience, not just his death, which we appropriate through our "fellowship of righteousness" with him. It's a question of emphasis. As usual, I think Calvin did a pretty good job of getting the balance.
9. Yes, I think Wright overemphasizes the newness. But I don't think there's any reason to believe that he's soft-pedaling justification or justification by faith. I do agree that may be a post-holocaust context for his agreement that 1st Cent Judaism was not essentially legalistic. But he still sees Paul as identifying a serious problem with Jews (or at least Judaizers), which is the use of works of the Law in a way that separates Jew from Gentile. So if he intended to avoid charges that could be used against modern Jews, I don't think he's succeeded.
On justification
2. I don't think he's conflating current justification and final justification. I think he makes the distinction quite clear, and that what he has in mind in justification by works could be WCF's final judgement. However there is probably a difference. WCF has in mind that because no one is perfect, we will all have some things that will be approved and some that will not. Wright is not thinking of a trial that might show us as at least partially guilty. Rather, he believes that in Paul there is a confidence that in the end God will publicly vindicate his current justification of sinners by showing that through the power of the Holy Spirit he turned them around and they did good (although certainly not perfect) works. It is because he expects the final judgement to be positive that it can be called justification, where justification is used in the sense of vindication.
3. It is pretty clear that the righteousness of God includes judicial uprightness. However the records of the court include God's covenant, and God's commitment to bring his people and through them the whole world into proper status under the covenant. Thus God's righteousness is not just disinterestedness, but a commitment to fulfill his purpose for the covenant.
4. For Wright being justified means more than just being a member of the covenant people. It means being a member of the covenant people *in good standing*. It is the in good standing part that is threatened by sin, and requires Christ's death.
I think calling the lawcourt a metaphor is correct. Surely he doesn't expect us to confront God sitting behind a judge's desk, with a wig and a clerk taking shorthand. God will do something that can reasonably be called judging, but not in a literal lawcourt.
I agree that Wright has overemphasized his novelty, and that he probably hasn't mastered Reformed theology as thoroughly as he might. But he's a NT scholar. I think Reformed theologians should encourage him for interacting with theology, and also help him overcome his limits. I think Gordon agrees with that.