I highly commend them for making this happen. My question is this: Who benefits from this change?
My bet is that many people, perhaps the majority of qt clients, will greatly benefit, but I would like some specific scenarios from other people, if possible. For me, personally, if it is going to take 4 FUCKING hours to download or get started, it might as well take two days. My life shows no functional improvement from one time limit to the other.
I kinda agree, a lot of people don't have patience to wait even for 4 hours, but if you're a newb getting into bitcoin I would always recommend a litewallet client. The bitcoin qt isn't too user friendly for the basic beginner in my opinion.