This seems desperate, bold or both.
If my boss were to come to me and tell me "let's draw a big blue arrow over out entire front-page" I would have just laughed in his face. Now I'm afraid it will be harder for me to do that.
1) opens Google+ to everyone 2) makes this arrow
It is a cohesive move: You put an arrow because it's open and it's open because of the arrow.
But, giving the timming, one could think that someone at the C level at Google agreed to use 'the nuclear option'.
If that doesn't work for Google+, Google is out of options to push Google+ for good (it could run tv ads. but it won't, and it would be expensive and not really a good way to promote a social network).
Also, other people could find it confusing and reject the idea just because it's too "right on their face".
But, it could work super! That would be bold (because of the risks named above) and great for Google & Google+
Anyway, I see slow growth for Google+. Most people don't want "social networking", they want to share photos with their kids or share funny jokes with their coworkers. Google+ will gradually integrate itself with services people use for this sort of thing, and will replace it as the "Tumblr feed" model replaces email, IM, and SMS.