They must have usage stats. I think they are well aware that a lot of older users (some likely heavy _content_contributors_) will simple walk away if they do t

They must have usage stats. I think they are well aware that a lot of older users (some likely heavy _content_contributors_) will simple walk away if they do this. You can't sell ads if you don't have original content that drives traffic to your pages.... old.reddit.com as well as '.compact' are the price to pay to prevent a digg type exodus.