As I said before, the experiment did cut down on a lot of crap, because some newbies simply don't want to register and instead post to AFC where we can nip an article's creation at the core. But unfortunately, not enough people join in there. Also, knowing that an IP address is likely newbie-ish is no longer helping new page patrollers as now they sign up for an account.
If we can somehow have signed up accounts tagged as newbie, it might still work, but however much I was convinced of its workings before, I'm starting to have doubts now.
Mgm