When steemit changed from the old 1 day payout to the 7 day period at the last hardfork many people were upset, the resetting of the new rewards pool didn't help matters but it was a bullet we had to bite in order for our site to move forward.
Now here we are with the new system in full swing and the reward pool back to, if not full then all but full and I'm loving it.
Here is why.
Under the old system your post had about an hour to earn any reward, if it didn't soar in that first hour then it never would. Now while that first hour after posting is still important you tend to get votes come in over a longer period but that's not the good part. The reward for your post continues to go up over the week, an $8 post climbs to over $10, a $5 to $6 or $7. The longer period waiting to payout increases your reward and protects it from any blips in steem prices.
So, as far as I can see the new payout period is a good thing that helps the rewards we get for our posts and is along with the recent rise in steem value and new accounts just another reason to be positive that we all jumped on the steem bus early.