I am sort of with Scott Belware on this one.  I have been to quite a few large conferences, and I have often been underwelmed by about half of the speakers there.  That said, the other half were often very good.  But, I think that Code Camps will ultimately help the large conferences rather than hurt them.

The nice thing about code camps is the low barior of entry, I hope that some of the guys speaking at them rise to the top and make their way to the bigger conferences.  This could quickly increase the quality of the speakers, and thus drive up attendance again.