I guess they have good reason for it.. But it is annoying for people who are seriously interested in debating and discussing bitcoin related stuff..
Newbie rule is good to reduce spam and autoposters but yeah 4 hour rule is a bit hard, I have been waitings ince 2 days to post in triplemining thread for some discussion >_> I guess I will browse the forum for 4 hours
There always has to be a balance between openness (and more spam getting through) or restrictiveness (and additional impact to legit use).
I myself registered and am waiting/posting pretty much for a single topic to ask a few questions on adapting fpga code to a particular chip.