And please let off with the "Same Value in the Long Term" argument. While perfectly valid in statistical terms, it has little relevance to the intermittent miner since it's far more important to know how much reward he/she can expect to earn for a given period of mining.
Then say
that. Don't say they punish people. A little bit of wording can go a long way.
Also note my other points above.
Scores decay exponentially if the miner is disconnected. How is that not punishing the disconnection?