"The good news is, most of us will find we've gone up in level. The progression at the low end of the scale is now smoother, and the levels come a bit quicker, so hopefully they'll do a good job of keeping our new members interested."

That's one way to look at it. Another is that, using myself for example, a fresh member might see himself go from 5th out of 10 ranks to 7th out of 28. Not that I feel I deserved to be halfway up the depth chart, but that some could be disturbed by change. New members might be more interested, but some might be a bit intimidated by the long road ahead and not feel as motivated to contribute. Then again, there's enough people here that there will be many differing perspectives.

I personally like the changes in general at first glance, and feel its a better system to handle the large population of Perlmonks. Although I'm echoing one of Evan_Carrol's issues, there is a disproportionate amount of levels for a small group, more than half the levels were previously contained within Saints.