There is a subreddit for academic papers, I figured it would make sense having something ultra-targeted for computer science papers and I didn't feel like the right community was using the subreddit (the results quality wasn't great). It did teach me that a lot of people like requesting papers, so this is something I am considering.
Also, this was a good opportunity for me to attack a problem I am really passionate about while testing out a web framework I've been writing (waltz).
Finally, I did the project for sentimental reasons. I was talking to Aaron Swartz about open journal a while back over skype and was looking forward to working with him on it, so I thought it would be nice to finish it in his honor :o)
You have some great ideas (mass download is something I've seen requested by some of my friends from my phd program). There's a team called peer library who's attacking many of these problems and I'll be giving them as much support as I can.
Thanks for your kind remarks + great feedback