Regarding the new Steam Family Plan announcement...yeah, it's pretty ironic that some of the same people I saw beating MS up in thread after thread regarding the Family Share plan are cheering this (not at this site, but at others).
As for the pricing with MS's proposed system, no, there was no pricing scheme that included great sales and deals in place.....yet. Thing is, Steam didn't start out with those, either. In fact, Steam was widely disliked until it was proven that the model could produce great pricing for consumers.
My hope was that the XBO would have released with the previous plan, gotten knocked down in the marketplace because people didn't really "get it", and then MS would have then been forced to get the pricing and discounts right or have the product fail entirely. It seems very likely that it would have led to lower pricing for digital downloads a lot faster than keeping the current model.