So far in this thread, nobody has mentioned the MOST important result of this discovery: it falsifies the Ekpyrotic Theory of Cosmology, the only other viable competitor with Inflationary Big Bang Cosmology.
This means that, for the moment, BB Inflationary Cosmology is the only theory left standing.
I have no idea if the Ekpyrotic Model can be revised to accomodate this data.
Can you give me a link to that thread? I can't seem to find it.
For the record, I just spoke with Burt Ovrut, one of the pioneers of the Ekpyrotic theory. He was surprised by that assertion, and expressed deep skepticism that CMB polarization would be calculable in such models as they now stand. They are still in their infancy, whereas inflationary models are very well understood.