It is understandable, it adds to the excitement if the host really cares, but it is wrong for it to happen in this sense. As I've said before - I'm not so much worried about the contestants (well, I am, but they're playing their game and there's too much else that could change their decisions) but about the message promoted to the audience. It's one thing to change one contestant's decision on a game show, it is quite another to endorse fiscal recklessness to an audience of three million of whom many are children.
(Noel's other talents - at building up drama or comedy from very little, at running on a tight taping schedule without many mistakes - are not to be underestimated though, and would be hard to find in another host if a replacement were ever necessary for whatever reason.)
You never saw Chris Tarrant lose his sense of neutrality when both he and ITV were desperate to see a jackpot winner on Millionaire did you? The Duncan Bickley episode proves that once and for all - if Tarrant were acting in the Edmondsesque manner you consider entirely reasonable, not a word of warning would have been uttered. Tarrant is the template Edmonds should be following, but unfortunately they have been rivals on television for decades, so you're not going to see Edmonds adopt the method of Tarrant. I'm pretty sure Tarrant has mocked this particular trait of Edmonds with a big 'if you'd been a little bit braver... you'd have just lost £x,000' when the occasion allows it (Travis?), and that is not surprising either.
Last word goes to Dougal though:
Dougal18 wrote:
Like anyone rational would gamble thousands of pounds just because they a) want confetti or b) pay attention to their son's drawings.
To which I can only reply that the host, and half the forum, must therefore be irrational people.