Well, I'm here to provide that "other" perspective (the new guy)!
I'm a new USPSA competitor, having just completed my first match last week. I've been shooting for many years, and work in law enforcement, so I come to this sport with some prior knowledge of which direction the pointy end of the gun should be facing.
Personally, I think these innovative stage props are great! Honestly, this is the kind of stuff that got me interested in these matches to begin with. I can plink paper all day long, and still enjoy myself reasonably well. But, I like the idea of shooting at interesting targets... these definitely fall into that category.
Granted, I might mutter some choice words to myself as I attempt to complete those stages, but that's half the fun in my mind (I also won't promise anyone that the shots will look pretty). At the end of the day I compete to make myself better, and I think that you have to push the "comfort zone" a bit to make this happen! Admittedly, a brand new shooter might find these stages to be incredibly frustrating, but I imagine that they would be frustrated by a lot of the more typical stages as well.
As I mentioned, I'm a new USPSA shooter, so I can't make my comments based on years of experience in this sport. Nevertheless, I think it is fairly safe to say that the type of shooting we do in these matches necessitates a more advanced degree of shooting proficiency than you would typically find in a brand new shooter at the average range. In other words, I personally wouldn't enter someone in a match the very first time they picked up a handgun! You need to walk before you run (both literally and figuratively, in this case). But, it sure is fun to push myself a bit, even if my scores don't land me at the top of the "charts".
For my part of it, when I saw the video links posted in this thread I thought to myself: "I need to get one of those!"
