Now why would they want to do a damn fool thing like that, John? ;-)
heh, well I know you know my reason, but for others, I will link to my attempted basic explanation. Heuristically, it would be sort of odd if this particular rather arbitrary method of generating new currency (which is irreversible) provided the optimal quantity of currency. This is especially true in the limit, when the the quantity is essentially fixed.
Though not yet an "official" project, Google has released a Bitcoin client. As you may remember, there were concerns here about what the government/legal reaction to Bitcoin [1] will be, and the significance of certain groups lending their support to it. EFF and SIAI accept Bitcoin donations, which helps, and this action by Google is another big step.
Previous articles: SIAI accepting Bitcoin donations, Discussion on making money with Bitcoin (Clippy warning on the latter)
[1] In short, it's an anonymous P2P crypto-currency with no transaction fees, in which new units are generated by spending computer cycles computing hashes until you find one with specific properties.