I have had crits shortened too, It makes it interesting but like another said sometimes it is a pretty far drive just to do a 35 miute crit opposed to a 50 minute one. I had a worse experience recently, we were all lined up at the line getting ready to start the last day of the 3-day stage race and they decided at the last moment that the primes whould not be worth extra points. I was in the GC and it was my first time as a 3 so I was stoked to be up there in the rankings but I still went for the primes and got some "stuff". They even had it in the race manual that we could be awarded extra points so our strategy was crushed a bit, haha.