Remind me who was advocating taking risks that offer no reward?
No-one. I phrased that wrong, sorry. I meant a negative expectation, ie. less reward than risk, which is how I assess the expectation of this proposal, rather than no reward at all.
Also, my question wasn't about whether one should balance risks and rewards, but what the right level of risk tolerance is for Wikipedia. I'm saying that I expect Wikipedia would be pretty hungry for well-managed risk. Unless people feel that the era of innovation at Wikipedia is more or less over, in which case the minimum-risk strategy you suggest seems more appropriate.
I agree, we have to take significant risks for Wikipedia to work. Allowing everyone to edit is an enormous risk, and we frequently lose time because of it (ie. we have to fix vandalism). However, the gain in terms of good contributions is even more enormous, so we consider it an acceptable risk. The risk of allowing large numbers of people access to admin tools without the strict standards we employ at the moment is extremely high, and the reward is very small, so (in my opinion, according to the values I've placed on the risk and reward and the balance between them that I've determined) it's not an acceptable risk.