Dave MacLeod comments what James Pearson has been writing about the influence of crashpads on the E-grade. In short, Dave's opinion seems to be that we should use pads where they're useful, and that Gritstone isn't really the right place for dangerous climbing and soul searching. "If you are looking to understand what E-grades mean, Gritstone is pretty much the last place to start." There's really no good reason to make climbing more dangerous than it already is in order to get a high E-grade.
I'd say that, if the landing is protectable by pads, it should be graded accordingly. Perhaps this means that a lot of the short routes on grit are in fact highballs, but so be it. If you then want to climb one of these highballs or short routes without pads, it's up to you, but maybe you should then ask yourself the simple question "for what reason am I doing this?". If it is to get a higher E-grade, I'm not saying the answer is wrong, but I suggest you think again.
This "pads or not, and how does it affect the grade"-debate is really quite... I don't want to say silly, but in hindsight, a few years from now, I don't think it's going to be easy to understand what all the fuss was about.