How many people were aware that we went from a 12hr payout to 24hr's recently?

I think that was basically an accident. The release was rushed out because of the mining security issue, which is a good reason for a faster-than-normal release. The rule changes were supposed to come in Hardfork 14, approximately two weeks later. Somehow the 12->24 change ended up in the first release.

In the earlier days things seemed to work better. There were more detailed proposals ahead of time and the release notes were more complete and detailed. I think the team is overworked trying to do too many things at once, and it shows.