Quote from: HanSolo on June 15, 2011, 11:28:00 PM

Your examples at http://eligius.st/wiki/index.php/Maximum_PPS always show miners with leftover 'value' balances, even with no intent to pool-hop.

The error is in assuming either 'value' or 'earnings' are owed to the miner. Until the miner does the actual work (collected in 'value') and earned the pool enough funds (collected in 'earnings'), nothing is due under MaxPPS. For an ordinary miner, in an ordinary scenario, doing the work should also earn the funds required. There are two scenarios where this is not the case:

someone withholding valid blocks -- in this case, under MaxPPS, he harms the overall pool income, and inevitably everyone is hit with a loss in 'earnings' -- with straight PPS, the pool operator takes 100% of the risk for this, even if he charges a large fee (both DeepBit and BitPenny charged 10%, and the latter had to close because it was losing too much money even still)
pool hoppers -- in this case, under MaxPPS, pool hoppers might continue to work only on short blocks, and always participate in earning the pool the appropriate funds to pay for the work they do, but they are never paid more than the work they do, so there is no incentive to hop -- under straight Proportional, these miners would only participate when there was a chance at getting paid more than the work they put into the pool, and inevitably the pool would be left empty if everyone did it

Quote from: HanSolo on June 15, 2011, 11:28:00 PM

Disregarding the independent question of fees, it seems MaxPPS pays out less than PPS for any fixed time period. It approaches PPS over an infinite timeframe.

You can't fairly disregard fees here. Straight PPS is impractical even with a 10% fee. MaxPPS should pay out more than that remaining 90% in theory.

Quote from: HanSolo on June 15, 2011, 11:28:00 PM

Depending on the number of independent miners with small unclaimed 'value' balances, the operator might wind up holding an arbitrarily large balance in the 'value' reserve.

The mistake here is in assuming the pool actually has funds to pay everyone's "value"; if that is the case, it also means everyone has the "earnings" too. The only time these are different are in excessive periods of bad luck (possibly induced artificially by a cheater) when everyone shares the "hit", or excessive periods of luck where everyone is paid in full for the work they do (and all build a reserve to cover the risk of future bad luck).

Quote from: HanSolo on June 15, 2011, 11:28:00 PM

Hard to see why that would be preferred by miners when there are other ways to disincentivize hopping.

If you know of a better way, feel free to suggest it. Every other way I've seen is unfair to some normal miners.