changing view on step II?

unfortunately, I believe going with a pass/fail usmle exam will ultimately hurt diversity (not necessarily racial) in competitive fields. There is already a glut of applicants to competitive residencies from "big name" schools. Without some sort of objective comparison between students from different schools, i believe good applicants that happened to go to lesser known schools will be lost in the shuffle.

Their rationale is that the step exams were never intended to stratify students based on ability or knowledge level, rather they were designed to ensure a sufficient knowledge base amongst those that pass.

If that really were the case, why would they be handing out individual scores along with the national average and 2-digit score?

My understanding is that it would be strictly P/F, with no way to stratify individuals.
Nothing has been finalized so some changes certainly could be made (or not ;p ).