[null and void]

If my suspicion is true, the purpose of these redesigns is to devalue the dollar in people's minds, so we will feel no sense of loss or outrage when it is finally eliminated.

Then it's failing in my case.

I find the newest series of notes visually interesting and esthetically pleasing. (OTOH, I quite literally put them under a microscope!).

Although I disagree that "the purpose of these redesigns is to devalue the dollar in people's minds", I agree that "we will feel no sense of loss or outrage when it is finally eliminated".

It's more subtle that making us not like the look of our money. It's to get us used to money frequently changing. After all, all three of the so-called Amero countries already use the same symbol -$- for their money. People will passively accept the new North American Dollar (or NAD) because it isn't all that much different than the last half a dozen changes to our bank notes.

The ones with the 'nads are ready to shove them down our throats at any excuse...

[Richard Poe]

null and void writes: It's more subtle than making us not like the look of our money. It's to get us used to money frequently changing.

That makes sense. But while they are inoculating us to frequent design changes, they must also get us used to unwelcome changes, that is, changes in the direction of postmodernist kitsch, as exemplified by the Euro.

Like you, I rather liked the design changes which were done from 1996 through 2007. However, the appearance this year of the purple "5" makes clear that much more radical changes lie ahead.