Apologies, consistent was not the correct word to convey my meaning. The reward schedule is consistent but the reward itself is pre-determined, known by all participants, it was set out from the beginning. There was no attempt to hide the idea until a certain proportion of the BTC was mined by the creator.

Penalising late adopters is just the reverse of rewarding early adopters and bitcoin needed early adopters to keep the network alive so it makes sense to reward them. I dont really buy that late adopters are being penalised though.