Sure there are benefits, but you've got a fine point -- is it worth the costs? What would metric advocates say to standardizing the world on the English language?

compilers and related research was at the forefront of technology itself

Excellent point dude. Computer science as a means to profit has become the application of computer technology to specific domains: financial securities trading, automobile ignition systems, sound engineering, microwave oven design, defense systems. Why specialize in a tool you can hire somebody to use for you, when you can specialize in the domain itself?

The change happened when computers got enabled as feasible tools. While there's still progress to be made, CS itself has lost the limelight, and things will probably stay that way until a paradigm shift fundamentally alters the field, maybe say when computers are no longer Turing machines.

For what it's worth, that factoid was embedded in a quote from Berkeley professor Russell Merritt. Didn't think I needed to factcheck it, but I should have--it's obviously based on out of date information.

Indeed, "a lot of people would not know about... lots of other news." But if /. were to modify their homepage, I think it's safe to say that plenty of people would know about the protest.