Well, I take it as either it hasn't been beneficial to users or it has been abused which with respect both cases doesn't make sense to me.
I know it has been beneficial because when it started I saw a lot of happy posts on different forums and everybody wished that it would be continued.
Also I can't come up with a suggestion of how it could have been abused. It was for checking the number of backlinks and I don't think people had managed to do something else with it or had they?