Your right...I even miss the old style of collecting hidden characters. You know...you can't use block, when with only a certain button, end with a double flawless victory and fatality...then you fight them, and if you beat them you unlock them...yup..those were the good ol' days...

I agree - it gives you a reason to play the game. Tekken and Street Fighter work like that - beating the game with character A gives you character B and so on. At least in MKD it gave you a reason to search around. In MKA you earn enough coins in Konquest to unlock just about all the costumes etc. If it weren't for that ? block there wouldn't really be any secrets in the game.