Because the crypto world needs another LTC clone, right? We haven't watched enough of those come and go already? It's not that hard to set up your rigs to mine scrypt-n, and NO, it doesn't damage anything.
As for your previous comment: YES this should help stop a forkfest on the launch. Scrypt-n means we won't have multipools dropping 50ghs on it as soon as it's compiled. Would you rather have an instamined clusterfuck?
It wouldn't be a clone. Litecoin had no backing, it's value came because it is better for small transactions. Most clones are just dumps. The value in GPU Coin is set at the store level by the owners despite what anyone thinks. If it settles at 1 satoshi, they price their cards accordingly. It's that simple. The business model is the backbone to this, not the coin.
Clusterfuck or not, it would've settled out. It always does. Good launches are so vital to a coins' popularity and value, which is why it's boggling they'll change things so late in the game rather than just switch over.
And yeah it's not hard to setup systems for ScryptN. Honestly, it seems more lazy to ask for something which is resistant to a technology. Whynot invest your earnings into the new technology? I can think of only 2 scrypt coins which were based on a business model which have and continue to hold value. Guess what? It didn't matter who mined it or how, or how many orphans occured. As long as transactions processed, the business front end made it valuable.
You can't expect to stand up a business and please both the miners and the other customers (folks who are simply going to buy the coin low at exchanges in order to get a good deal on the equipment from the store--folks who arent mining). If you want your business to not collapse on itself, you will please the website customer. This negates the miners' feelings.
Every other coin to come along and try to please the miners and the front end in a business model, has failed.
Business is a cold hard bitch.