hether or not mining for account creation could be exploited by those looking to spam.

This is indeed an interesting detail in their proposed change and it might allow some sort of new exploit. Taking into account that these accounts would be created without vesting stake, though, at least it still limits potential reward-pool farming without investing for a stake.

On the other hand, the required baseline minimum bandwidth probably does open up new avenues for potential spamming and will require some attention to detail.

One of the things I've been concerned about is name squatting.

Yes, the quest for good account names will become a struggle soon, I wonder if we'll see the day where a real celebrity comes to steemit just to find his name has been snatched by an imposter in the past!