Seems like the DoS prevention code in GLD prevents people from hopping on when it comes to the top of the profit list.
The defense protects the network by preventing hashpower from being added to quickly.
It basically gives more power to the little guy by removing the advantage of someone using an industrial strength mining rig jumping on the network for some quick and easy coins. Mining goldcoin is no longer an exercise in raw hashing power.
Akumaburn wrote about this is detail yesterday:
https://www.gldtalk.org/index.php?topic=1262.msg6081#msg6081