I really like the idea of decentralise transaction verification so I would like to support pools with low hashing power. However, the only thing that stops me to support Bitminter is the requirement to use an online account to mine on Bitminter. I don't have and I don't want to have an online account managed by any companies like AOL, Yahoo, etc. But out of curiosity if you don't mind to explain, what is the reason why having online account is mandatory to mine on Bitminter? Why can we not register an account which is localised on Bitminter network? Or why can we not use our Bitcoin address to mine on Bitminter?
The idea in 2011 was to simplify things for users so they don't have to remember so many passwords. Nowadays people use password managers, so that is less of an issue. While some do like the "single sign-on" others don't want to link accounts for privacy reasons. Adding login with user name and password is on the TODO list. Until that is implemented the easiest way would be to create a separate account at Google, Verisign or similar only for logging into Bitminter if you want to avoid having any connection to your regular Google account.
Originally (in 2011) I also thought there would be less support requests related to login issues (no lost passwords). It turns out there's a lot of "I deleted my Google account. How can I log in now?" or "I got banned by Google". Not to mention angry emails accusing me of working with the NSA to spy on people. Or users swearing about how dumb the website is that doesn't recognize them, after they create an account with their own Google account, but are then unable to log in with their girlfriend's Google account.
A lot of users just don't understand OpenID, or even the "log in with Google" or "log in with Facebook" that many websites have. So yeah, name and password would probably have been a better choice.
That said, over 350 000 people have registered and most of them manage(d) fine.