> Our hypothesis is that by adding bounties to the equation, the quality + speed of the answers you receive will increase due to competition for the bounty.

Well, either that or maybe the opposite. When there's a financial incentive people will respond to as many questions as possible just out of hope that they'll be awarded for any of the answers. If that happens then that will kill the quality of the answers. Good answers take time to research or require knowledge that only a minority of people have for any specific question. Spewing out garbage answers takes no time and no skill so it's more likely that more people will be doing that.