How could it not?

More properly targeted ads would be great!

But I suppose even poorly targeted junk ads might drive the epc up a bit, of course they might also drive the CTR down as much. Maybe no gain there.

Agreed. I think it would have to.

Do you think more competition will lift your earnings?

I dont think so. Why? Technically it should however in GOOG world I just dont believe that they would pass the extra earnings to our packets if they could keep the extra revenue and keep paying publishers the same.

The problem is that even though that your website may be popular among GOOG advertisers that you cannot control or set CPM or CPC. Google will collect whatever amount and pay you fraction of it if they feel like paying (or wont pay you anything at all) just because you agreed to those conditions where you dont know what share of the revenue you get and they keep.

As you can see, these are new tools for advertisers. You are publisher, so no tools for you.

Amen to what Januuski says.

Google knows until now for the majority of publishers which eCPM these publishers feel comfortable with, before they start to make changes or pull the ads (a clear sign of "I am not comfortable any longer!"). So why should they change the payout, just because THEY can better monetize the adspace they buy from you? Not realistic in Googleland.

To the date I have not seen an evidence that there is a direct relationship between ad quality and payout. We ASSUME that there is a link, but Google has kept us perfectly in the dark, and so we can't know. Why would they suddenly -in a bold move of 'openness'- pay us more for exactly the same amount of eyeballs? I mean, we did not do anything extra, right?

From that thread:

keep track of the millions of sites out there that might be just right for your campaign

We're in millions now?
then it says:

both on and off the Google content network

aha, great targeting tool for current advertisers, but will it attract enough new ones into AdWords for us to feel a difference?

Does that mean I have to turn on CPM again trusting the auction system will finally manage to compare apples to oranges successfully when CPC and CPM compete?

I have more questions and doubts than answers.