I think this is a complex debate and I'm sure that none of us understand player behavior completely, but my experience is actually the opposite of what you're saying.

Yes, people are risk averse, they want to make good decisions when they're taking risks and that often leads being conservative. That's exactly why I like this kind of mechanic. People want to do the fun thing and take more engagements, but when they have enough information to know that they aren't the favorite they shy away from fighting. However, when some information is obscured they become optimistic and take more risks. I've seen players so willing to make decisions that are likely too risky simply because they lack perfect information. Jumping into gate camps where positional information isn't guaranteed, engaging on stations with people docked, fighting in systems with more in local than can be accounted for, etc. These mechanics that obscure information give people the excuses needed to take risks. Take the example given somewhere in this thread of a low sec camp with 2 Vexors and 2 Rooks. Before these changes, the gang considering fighting them never would because they know they can't deal with the Rooks. After, they won't see them and so they will probably engage. That's more fights because people are risk averse.

The negative side for me is your other bullet point. Because people don't want to take unnecessary risk they will work very hard, sometimes doing something very boring or difficult, just to get at those last pieces of information. And they should. But we would want to avoid mechanics that obligate people to this kind of behavior too heavily without enough positive side to make the mechanic worthwhile.

I would be more worried with this mechanic that people have to spend a lot of time running probe scans when they really don't want to be than that they are avoiding engagements because of the possibility of Recons. I don't think this will be a problem but we'll have to wait and see.