60% Drop In Traffic From Google Switching Site (#1) To Google Places (#1) ?

I'm not making this thread to complain about anything.

I'm very curious about a trend I've been noticing with one of my money sites. And I'm trying to develop a plan to combat this in the future (other than not using google cause I love google).

For months and months, my site has been #1 in google for 2 keywords, and in the top 3 for various other keywords.

Then I have some keywords ranking from my google places in the top 3 as well.

That site tends to average 1200-1500 impressions / day and about 15-20 clicks which is plenty for us.

However, I've noticed this weird trend where google switches website keywords, with google places keywords, and everytime this happens our traffic drops.

We've always had 1 keyword though that was never disturbed, and always hung in position 1 no matter what. That keyword has NEVER been swapped with our google places.

Anyway, a few days ago google SWAPPED that main keyword from our site, with our google places, and traffic plummeted about 60+%.

We're now around 500-600 impressions a day, and around 4-7 clicks / day.

The weirdest thing is... NOTHING else changed about our rankings. That keyword is STILL in #1, except our google places shows up now instead of our direct website.

We have great reviews so I'm thinking about making some drastic changes to future sites, and not even registering with google places anymore.

Another weird thing with the listing is how it displays.

#1 our google places
#2 competitor website
#3 competitor website
#4 competitors google places
#5 competitors google places
#6 competitors google places
#7 competitors google places
etc etc

So we almost look like an "outcast" in some weird way. Our google listing is above the fold all by itself with no other google listings unless you scroll down.

I still believe its google places itself that has triggered this massive drop in traffic.

Anyway, I have a few questions to try avoiding this in the future.

1) WHY does google randomly switch keywords like this from your site to google places? It use to happen to lower search keywords that were ranking a bit lower, but never to one of our main money keywords. And never have we seen a drop in traffic like this.

2) I already have a new site in the same exact niche, have not registered it with google places, and I'm starting to think it would be a BAD decision to register with google places. It just seems that when you have a website that is ranking well, and google places ranking well, your keywords are a lot more unstable. The 7 box rotates in and out, google switches keywords from your site with your google places, and in the end we get far more traffic from our site.

I like having google places for reviews but I honestly feel like its holding us back. Its almost like google has no idea what to rank, our site or our google places. But we NEED somewhere to put reviews. And if I put reviews on other directories (yelp, yellow pages, etc), I think google just scrapes your data and MAKES a listing for you right?

So is there no way to have reviews online, and a site, without google places?

These are weird questions I know.
But I'm really curious what you guys think about this.

Thanks,

Red