I haven't yet read this thread, but it looks like the initial argument is still going on.
On one hand, stock prices are grossly inflated, since there's been a bubble in the stock market. It's a "good thing" for them to go down, as in, it's healthy for the market, and stock prices need to return to realistic levels before the economy can really move on from this.
On the other hand, it's really, really bad for the stock market to come down all at once in a precipitous crash! Joe Average is still just waking up to all of this. If the market crashes by thousands of points today or even this week, he just won't have enough time to get up to speed and rescue his savings. Hell, even a lot of us "in the know" are not ready for this! Anyone who's still heavily in the market, especially anyone who isn't diversified (and by that, I mean into PM's and foreign currencies as well as domestic companies), could get their life savings wiped out. I may still be young, but I'm one of them - I'm in the process of having shares moved out of an account so I can sell them without huge cuts going to Morgan Stanley. By the time I'm in the position to offload some, diversify, and make better investments, I may already be screwed.
The point is: Prices need to return to realistic levels and the bubble needs to burst for the long-term health of the economy. However, if the market crashes all at once, the little people will have their investments wiped out in the blink of an eye...while the fat cats up at the top get information quicker, and they'll be able to easily save their own asses.