Esse é meu problema:

desde que atualizei o Android Studio para .4.3 toda vez que tento criar um novo projeto, recebo alguma falha de compilação, o que acontece com todo e qualquer novo projeto, sem código próprio lá ...

Vamos dar uma olhada:

Código Android:

package com.appgcm;

import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBar;
import android.support.v4.app.Fragment;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.os.Build;

public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    if (savedInstanceState == null) {
        getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction()
                .add(R.id.container, new PlaceholderFragment())
                .commit();
    }
}


@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {

    // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
    return true;
}

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
    // Handle action bar item clicks here. The action bar will
    // automatically handle clicks on the Home/Up button, so long
    // as you specify a parent activity in AndroidManifest.xml.
    int id = item.getItemId();
    if (id == R.id.action_settings) {
        return true;
    }
    return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
}

/**
 * A placeholder fragment containing a simple view.
 */
public static class PlaceholderFragment extends Fragment {

    public PlaceholderFragment() {
    }

    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
            Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        View rootView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_main, container, false);
        return rootView;
    }
}

}

Build.gradle

apply plugin: 'android'

android {
compileSdkVersion 19
buildToolsVersion "17.0.0"

defaultConfig {
    minSdkVersion 7
    targetSdkVersion 19
    versionCode 1
    versionName "1.0"
}
buildTypes {
    release {
        runProguard false
        proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard rules.txt'
    }
}
}

dependencies {
    compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:+'
    compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar', '*.aar'])
}

Erro do console Gradle:

Executing tasks: [:appgcm:generateDebugSources]

Relying on packaging to define the extension of the main artifact has been deprecated     and is scheduled to be removed in Gradle 2.0
:appgcm:preBuild FAILED

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':appgcm:preBuild'.
> Build Tools Revision 19.0.0+ is required.

* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option     to get more log output.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 3.265 secs

Ok, acho que são informações suficientes para tirar algo; ainda não sou especialista em gradle; portanto, quanto mais detalhadas forem as suas explicações, melhor.

Muito obrigado!

EDITAR:

Eu tomei o conselho de pyus13 e agora estou causando outro tipo de erro, aqui está:

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* Where:
Build file 'C:\Users\pandolet\workspace\APPGCM\appgcm\build.gradle' line: 1

* What went wrong:
A problem occurred evaluating project ':appgcm'.
> Plugin with id 'android' not found.

* Try:
Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 0.306 secs

Nível de raiz build.gradle:

// Top-level build file where you can add configuration options common to all sub-projects/modules.

buildscript {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
    }
    dependencies {
        'com.android.tools.build:gradle:0.8.+'
    }
}

allprojects {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
    }
}