Epi-genetics Implications

I read a bit in the current issue of Scientific American about inherited epi-genetic changes. This possibility suggested several things to me. These changes, methylation of particular genetic regions to prevent transcription and thus shut off expression of a gene can evidently be transmitted through the process of meiosis. The changes are supposed to be removed in the process of forming germ cells, but more likely, there is a signalling process to control removal or preservation in my opinion. Epigenetic changes can be controlled by signals and events received from the environment, but they potentially control expression of what would be pure genetic traits. This would make it possible for the for the trait to follow and arc of expression, or be turned on or off, and then this state passed on to offspring. Something rather like Lamarkian evolution would be possible.