I wonder how much those patent examiners in particular will use http://patents.stackexchange.com/

Presumably all that'll happen is that firms will send their erroneous or overreaching patents elsewhere? Or is there a process to avoid this?

According to the USPTO site, "The work of examining applications for patents is divided among a number of examining technology centers (TC), each TC having jurisdiction over certain assigned fields of technology."

Since this office is part of an "effort to provide better quality patents for regional economies," my guess is that they will be responsible for reviewing at least some patents in Valley-specific technical areas. That's just a guess though.