So much of reddit is on smaller subs where vote fuzzing never or minimally effected vote counts.

Find a comment of yours in a small sub with four votes. Hit refresh repeatedly. In the space of seconds you'll see it dance to 6/1, 4/2, 5/0, then cycle back through with a little salting. This means one of two things:

1) There's someone in every sub hyperactively slamming upvote and downvote buttons 'cuz he can't make up his mind

or

2) Vote fuzzing hits at less than ten, thereby rendering even the smallest subs subject to its whim.

but subreddits like /r/photoshopbattles which based it's entire content selection on vote counts are now essentially broken.

No, those who used those subreddits who weren't already aware of how broken they truly are have just awoken to the reality of the situation.

This is coupled with the fact that they didn't inform the dev. community at all, so pretty much every major reddit app is broken right now.

Humor me. Click here. Check out that there trophy shelf or whatever they call it. Find the thing that looks like this:

Ever seen one of those before?

That's a badge for Reddit's first, last and only beta. It was in 2010. They've gone through two other search engines since then and beta-tested none of them. That team is so gone that not only are none of them still at Reddit, none of the people they hired are still at Reddit.

I bring this up as a long-winded, argument-from-authority approach to saying "what else would you expect?"

Basically, it's not surprising that people are upset about this, it was hasty and poorly implemented, and this says nothing about whether it's a good idea or not, just that this reality is why you're seeing so much backlash.

(1) no doubt.

(2) no surprise there.

(3) the argument is that "reddit is imploding in real time." I would say that's exactly the sort of vague sensationalism that caused many of us here to leave reddit. Is it fair to say that large swaths of the uneducated masses are currently experiencing rustled jimmies? Absolutely. "implode?"

More like a zit popping.