A WebmasterWorld thread links to Andrew Goodman's interview with Nick Fox of Google. They quote one specific piece:
We've been debating this internally, and it's my feeling that our users will benefit even if we push the landing page quality measure into the quality score that affects ad rank. Basically, I advocate all of the factors being used in the actual rankings of the ads, not just affecting minimum bids. So I'm pushing for landing page quality being included in the ranking formula and I think you'll see that soon.
To some advertisers, this brings hope that prices may change and things will get easier at the hardest and most important times of their season. To some, they feel no trust towards Google any more.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.