The 'beef' is access to equity capital from being public, right? They wanted to be a public company, and the merger was the cheapest and easiest way to do it. They didn't merge with a crappy company, either, which is often the case. So that makes it even more appealing.
i hope someone else can ans that as this is my first stock with any kind of merger. to be honest my DD consists of reading PR's checking out the web sites and seeing what they have as far as float, A/S, O/S and volume. also i look at the basic chart trends (im no expert but hope to be someday).