Having this as a per user option generally ends up causing big headaches. Partially with SEO, and partially with usability. You send me a link to page 3 to point to something in particular, but because of my settings I don't actually see the post, etc.
I'm soo glad you decided to stick with the original setup and removed the feature at user level, we all know the issues it created into other software. I could of simply run a daemon and load 1000 agents on a specific link with pp=5000 (for example) and bring the server to its knees quickly. Very smart decision from you to toss that useless option.