You would literally be rewarding those that contributed nothing and continually dumped their free coins on the market, which is at least part of what caused this anyways (price was MUCH higher, 120+ satoshis, before a huge influx of people started getting added to the receivers. As more people were added, the more dumps occurred, which can be seen by just following its history).
Just take a look at the price chart:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/devcoin/DVC was dumped all the time. Just from the beginning.
And it will be repeated with the new coin unless significant changes to reward distribution system. Even small fraction of existing devcoins converted to a new one will ruin new coin in days. I'm trying to develop reasonable way to sort it out with not devcoin holders left behind.
It will be very hard task.
I am actually 100% on board with the method provided whereby they'd convert for very little and after a year or two would be worth full value and keep going higher. This does two things: as you stated, it would keep the dumping from happening in the beginning, and at the same time would offer a PoS-like setup for existing users that rewards the longer-term holders.