Don't worry, the SEC will eventually fully open the doors to retail investors investing in private equity. Imagine the bubble when the companies don't even have to disclose the bad news!
Yeah, I'm not convinced that's a good idea, but I think they are at least putting some extra limits in place so that they won't gamble their whole 401k away.
They say Americans learn about geography though war -- I'm going to say they learn about economics through financial crises. Most people don't understand private equity markets (like they didn't understand CDS's, etc) so it's certainly in the list of contenders for the next crisis.