[jacquesm]

Yes, now we are in agreement. For the users of google it matters, but those are not the people that are currently screaming blue murder, it is the webmasters who had a ton of traffic from google before and that lost it (fairly or unfairly is a case-by-case thing).

If users no longer find relevant content then that is a real problem but I think that in this particular respect your goals and google's goals are very much in alignment. In other words, if they could do better they would.