As I mentioned in the Wishlist thread, I haven't actually gotten to see the new system in person yet, (alas, shiny Apple computer, you fail me again), so I reserve the right to do a 180 on my opinion later, but I admit the system seems like major overkill for a minor nuisance. I think it could be clever if it was refined considerably - I like Under the moon's suggestions, and I'd like to add that for player convenience it would be nice if there was a simple way to establish in one go various people you already know and would rather not have to use the /introduce system on, or people you've been mass-introduced to, like a "/know Bob, Hugaboo, Flim, Whatsiface, Jim" or something.
The way it's set up, it looks like the minor annoyance of bad RPers being all "Hi, <your name here>!" to perfect strangers has been replaced by the major annoyance of people introducing themselves to people they realistically wouldn't, or coming in and introducing themselves en spammy masse before, or without, bothering to actually RP, etc. etc.
I don't vote it be completely scrapped, but I would like to see it maybe rolled back while the devs refine it a little to make it more usable.