This looks to me as another way for Google to maximise revenues by upping everyones bid prices. The minimum bid requirement ensured that all cheap traffic was a thing of the past, this max bid requirement will only increase the entire auction cost for everyone.

Google have created a score which they define that you must hit in terms of Max CPC to obtain top spots. If you do not hit their defined Max CPC you do not get top spot. You therefore have to up bid prices to the level defined so you can hit top spot. So I ask..

“What stops Google from taking brand related search terms for a company, which invariably are very cheap (Max CPC $0.10 for top spot) and deciding the advertiser must pay $0.25 if they wish to remain above the natural results?”

This is a Max CPC increase of 150%, if the top 2 positions both raise their max CPCs both parties costs will surely increase by 150% through the original pricing algorithm.

To me this is another way of milking everyone for more money. If everyone is told they cannot get top spots as they do not pay enough, everyone will up bids according to Google’s rule. If we are all forced to up bid prices to obtain our desired position the auction increases and we all pay more money to Google. The old bid calculation doesn’t need to change if everyone is upping their max bids, its simple we will all pay more money to Google.

This makes me not a very happy AdWords user!

I don’t think the new feature is explained the way it’s meant to be. Your rank in adwords will be calculated by the max cpc you,ve set, but your payment still comes from the bidding system. Therefore you don’t automatically pay the max cpc for each click. I say automatically, because it eventually will result in higher cpc’s most probably. So in my view your bid will be used to calculate ad quality and thus placement. It doesn’t mean you have to pay the lot.
And, ofcourse it only accounts for the top-placement ads, not the ads on the side.