The main reason for the change was inactive users. Users must revisit their settings once in a while.
Why do people in the blockchain have to have an "active" stake? If someone buys shares in a company do they have to be an "active" investor? Don't we want mass uptake of investors to buy Hive and power it up for passive income purposes using autovotes and curation trails ? Or are we saying as a blockchain we only want "active" investors and passive investment will be discouraged? Will anyone trust hive.vote not to change their preferences again after this? Most people who want to 'invest' just want to set some settings and come back in 12-18 months; not have to monitor continually changing requirements or log in each day to manually vote. Investment funds will just flow to coins like Tezos which simple staking rewards if we keep changing the goal posts.