That's actually something I really want. I'm sick of reading "My fiancee and I were walking down Main St, browsing restaurants, when we happened to notice <restaurant name>. She likes fish, so we were looking for fish dishes..."
As for the rest of it - you're likely right. But the old Foursquare wasn't generating money. So either you abandon your hardcore users by shutting down, or you attempt to move them to a new service that has a better business model.
It's a sliding scale though, at $$$$ I would rate the service related review more highly.
I would LOVE if yelp let people rate reviews, as well as restaurants. Useful reviews deserver more weight than ones that say, "I hated it, and didn't leave a tip because the waiter was ..."
Sadly most of my friends who don't use foursquare haven't seen it my way.
But my point is, they're still building and supporting 1 check-in app... If they'd just called that one foursquare and not remove any features, and make a new app for the rest of the world, they could still pursue that larger group of non-obsessed users that they need without alienating the people who would be happy to keep supplying them with behavioral data and content forever.