I think this is a good move. Imgur got used only because it was convenient and that it didn't have any stuff brewing around the service. That it was created by a redditor probably also helped. Now it is a service with a lot of stuff going on around it, and a competitor to Reddit in a sense, being its own community oriented around discussing trending topics or creating memes.

Since Reddit has their own service for this now, hopefully they can use their revenue to keep it clean and at least reasonably ad free and focused on its simple mission. If that can happen, I think this is a step forward from what Imgur has become. Not anything bad per se if you want a different community, but not optimal if you already are on one and just want to view the pictures.