The max_blocksize debate takes a big step forward. All the major chinese pools voting for 8MB blocks by stamping the blocks they are mining. This plus chinese devaluation = UP.
The big miners are always going to want 8mb blocks, they have the economic incentive to as they can punish the smaller miners by not relaying their solved blocks to them and with the added bandwith needed to relay the larger blocks the big miners only relaying their blocks to the big miners
reduces competition and centralizes even more.
Are there really small miners anymore? Even the small guys point at big pools. If anything, the remote mines in china may be at a disadvantage compared to locations with better bandwidth.
The concern with big blocks isn't the mining nodes, it's just the regular nodes. People worry about a percentage of them shutting down after balking at increased network costs leading to more centralization on a relaying node (vs mining node) level.
It's definitely not resolved yet, but progress is good, markets hate uncertainty.