I've quite often started a question that I find very important, to where I'm sure I'd like to reward a bounty on it. I would also like users to know that I value the question highly and that I will hold answers to a higher standard, so if I start a high bounty on it users would be more inclined to spent more time answering it. However, when you start a question you have to wait two days to start the bounty.
I've never really seen the benefit of delaying bounties, in fact they seem detrimental as I often see as soon as a bounty is posted more quality answers come in and previous answers are rewritten to be better. So if more bounties were offered quicker, users would answer with those "good answers" right away, and it would improve the overall community.
What is the purpose of the two day wait period?