Where were all these newbies when we were all discussing changes to bitcointalk in Meta for the past few months? They sure didn't seem to care before changes were actually made.
I assume most of the bounty campaigns don't pay out for posts in Meta, so most of them will never even have clicked on this board before.
The split seems fairly 50/50 with the fishing for merits today - half the newbies complaining about the new system and offering some thoughtless alternative, and half the newbies praising the new system but suggesting it doesn't go far enough. I can't decide which side is more ridiculous.