It's hard to imagine reasonable explanations for such suicidal business "decisions" by WGT - they either want to close their business and cash out whatever assets they have or want to shake up the community by getting rid of the main credit "earners" (i.e. top players), which would temporarily ease the competition, but I can't see what purpose that could serve in the long term...
Whichever the case, with this WGT did some really irreparable damage to their reputation (like US govt infighting leading to business uncertainty and credit rating downgrade :)). They attacked the principle of legitimate expectations and now people won't be playing seriously and consistently towards a long term goal (like a gift card or a set of clubs) that could take them 1 or a few years to achieve, because they experienced that half a year or a month before actually reaching the goal, it could be sneaked away from them. Although a "net earner", I thankfully wasn't anywhere close to such a goal, but I can't imagine how pissed must be the people who were there 70 or 90% (well, they will probably still have a chance to get a cap, a shirt and a towel with logos of their beloved company :))
As things stand, after finishing the entered tournies, I will be quitting active play (which likely, given the recent trend of developments, is permanently). I wanna thank everyone - it was a nice and fun experience, and since I'm a mostly self-taught beginner in real golf, it helped me learn some useful concepts and develop intuitions. Most importantly, I got an insight how such communities function, what role different kinds of rewards have, what motivates people, etc. that I hope to apply to my business/community project (which has nothing to do with golf, but which will hopefully be more long-term oriented, stable and socially sensitive than what we have here...) I hope other WGT community members will use their experience and try to implement their ideas too, perhaps leading to a good competitor for WGT.
So, hf and gla folks!