"[...]it appears from the FAQ page that it will be possible to undertake the open course and then pay a “modest” fee to demonstrate mastery of the subject matter and be credentialled with an MIT award."
I guess the value of that will depend on how those certificates are perceived. If you're hiring a coder who is entirely self taught, and you see a few of these certificates in the kind of basic CS areas that are often lacking among entirely self taught programmers, it might sway a hiring decision a bit one way or the other.
Not true. For the "modest fee" they'll give an MITx certificate. The FAQ clearly states this: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/mitx-faq-1219