I'm voting against those two proposals. They'll have the effect of lowering the overall quality of comments.

My suggestion (if it is codable) is some icon next to the names of new users in their comments or some other innocuous identifying feature to let us identify them. The only problem we have with new users is not recognizing they are new. What we need is more information, not a watering down of our incentive structure. If people can easily identify new users they will avoid downvotes except for trolls and remember to be more welcoming and helpful. Moreover, new users should be defined by number of comments (30 or fewer?) not time since registration, since some will register but only later start commenting.