I doubt the new grace period will have much effect, other than delaying the drops. Once an expired domain name makes it through a few days of registrar hold (inactivity), in addition to whatever expiration notices the registrar sent, the owner must not care if it's down. Those that wait until the last possible minute to renew (a month or so past expiration) for cash flow reasons won't wait into the redemption period because it's much more expensive to redeem than to renew.
I think we're all just getting a needed vacation (and a much more useful registry whois service).
The grace period will be good for Snapnames because each snapback slot will be tied up for a longer period of time, and there will be more time for people to figure out domain names are expiring.