Tom,

The Discussion system will render the Karma Coward option redundant. People wanting to post at low-risk to guage standards can do that in the Discussion, without diluting top-level content. Also,

I would not have continued LessWrong if I hadn't seen its extremely high standards. They're what makes LessWrong extremely special, and invaluably unique, to the world I would say. There are plenty of other forums out there where people can post non-heavily deliberated material.

We're not being "elitist pricks", we're creating an option that hitherto simply wouldn't exist otherwise.