Interesting.
I can see both sides to it.
I own a small hobby shop and am going to be running my first event next month and I am going to allow unreleased models. They will have to be converted to where you can tell what they are. I see no problem with that.
I do not like the silver army of doom where you can't tell what anything is. I also do not like counts-as armies (coming from Warhammer 40k.) I was at a tournament and a guy had some lizardmen Stegadons, some Eldar riding Cold Ones (lizard mounts) and a bunch of other random crap. I was like - 'oh neat, exodite Eldar" (these are Eldar - who are basically space elves - who live with nature and have animals and lizards and stuff) - and the guy was like "no, these are Tyranids" (giant space bugs.) I was floored, I couldn't tell what anything was supposed to be - stuff like that pisses me off.