Checkuser and Oversight appointments

I just realised that the proposal to allow the Community to give proper input into who gets the most "big deal" rights is strikingly similar to a proposal I tried to push through almost a year ago, but failed when ArbCom vetoed it. Mine was slightly different at first, because it didn't involve ArbCom unnecessarily. Apart from that though, it is essentially the same. Why has it taken a year for this to get going? And why did people like Mackensen, Sam Korn and FloNight dislike the idea so much in January 2008, claiming all sorts of things: such as it was illegitimate, it would never work, the current system worked fine, the appointing was ArbCom's "gift", and an RFA-style process would not work because it's a popularity contest. And yet... it's going to happen, thanks to the 2009 Committee, who have so far impressed me immensely. 2008 was an extremely disappointing year arb-wise, which is probably why they caused my proposal to fail. But it won't now, which is good. But it's a year late, thanks to the 2008 arbcom who were pretty poor if I'm honest.