The changes make me frustrated and sad.
I started listening to podcasts, especially scifi podcasts because I was having trouble reading. I used to read like the wind. I could read most books in day. Now the same book takes me a month.
With all the new content, in print, not podcast, well, it's frustrating.
None of the new content existed prior to the changes - nothing that was there before the changes has gone away (or even changed in any way except a new editor/host). If it helps, just think of the blog as a totally different magazine that happens to share a name with this one.
Personally, I think most of the blog content is rather uninteresting - I'm here to listen to stories. I like to hear people's reactions to stories and discuss the stories. Discussing people's personal reactions to Halloween, or meta-theories of science fiction? Not for me.
I think the rate increases are good. I was beginning to feel we were getting the leavings, those stories that wouldn't sell anyplace else.
Given that before the reprint EP was almost entirely a reprint market, that couldn't have been true, by definition.
Wading through the slush pile can yield new works by unknown writers willing and happy to even give their work away for free. But it sounds like the slush pile had gotten so big that it was mostly writers with established reputations that were getting read, at least getting read first.
Let me assure you that none of us slush readers prioritize established authors. Heck, I don't even bother reading author's names or biographies until after I've read the stories.
I would like an escapepod beta made up of works by new authors. Maybe more people would be willing to volunteer to read slush and pass on the good stuff.
The good stuff is being passed on right now. As is a lot of ok-but-not-quite-there stuff. The policy of slush readers is to pass on everything that *might* be acceptable, not only the stuff we really like. Mur gets to make the tough decisions.
One thing that you probably aren't aware of is that the amount of submissions by previously unpublished authors increased dramatically since the rate increase, and - in my opinion - the percentage of decent stuff that gets passed up remains the same. Over the past month, I have passed up more stuff by new authors than I have over similar periods earlier.
In other words, I think your concerns are quite misplaced. Definitely so on the slush reader level, which is the one I can vouch for.