Hmm. My money cleared Paypal on the 15th (August), BFL has had my money since the 15th (August), and I still have no confirmation email from BFL with an order number or any kind of receipt other than the papal receipt. Would be nice to get some kind of verification from BFL that they got my order at least.

I can understand folks maybe not liking the switch, but don't say that BT just 'sprung' this on anyone.  He brought up the idea over a week ago and asked for comments.  If you had a problem back then, you should have spoke up, and if you're new, you should read at least a few pages of the posts before you hop into a pool.

That being said, this will level the playing field and give more standardized payouts, but it's not better or worse than any other way to mine for your wallet, you'll get paid the same.  Over the long haul, you are going to make XX amount of bitcoins (assuming the same hashrate/difficulty) no matter how you mine, minus any fees you pay of course.  It's probability, you may not like it, but you can't escape it.  

While it was great to get 9 payouts over the last 4 days, there were times we went way above the average number before you had a payout.  Eventually things would level out.  So maybe some of the 'excitement' of the pool is gone and it's now more of a steady payout, but it's really just a matter of preference.  If the system doesn't work out, I'm sure BT will switch back, but I still think it's better to see a regular, steady payout than see 9 in 4 days and then maybe go 6 days without one.

There's ton's of pools out there doing proportional shares (Bitclockers is awesome and is my backup pool) if you really don't want to do PPS and like the smaller pool/excitement thing.

Whatever you do though, don't go to deepbit.  They charge way too much and are too big already