Hey just reading back a bit in regards to pools, and I don't think they should be dropped. Imo just make pools matches tournament standard, best of 3 cp's etc. Each player plays every one else in their pool once, top two set winners go through and all draws are played out.
There's always gonna be upsets, and un seeded players always have a chance at creating these upsets but this is life and happens in real sport all the time. Top players having seeds increases the over all validity of a tournament as it ensures that good players don't meet each other ridiculously early.
The only change I would make is instead of having 8 seeds (assuming an attendence of 32) have 16 seeds. That way instead of having senerios where, for example alzi's pool last tourney;
Alzi - Seeded player
Mugza - Potential top 16 Player
Trillest - Potential top 16 Player (Though his ranking doesn't currently show it he most definitely is)
Poor Unfortunate Soul - Very Unlucky
Get smashed together, you have a much smaller chance of getting really stacked pools. It might be hard due to people not guarenteed to rock up etc for the first few tournies, but particularly if Bi-Weeklies are a possibillity in the near future it really wouldnt be that hard to keep accurate rankings and make sure those who consistently play well are spaced out enough so that they get some reward for their consistency, and those who aren't seeded don't face a pool where to progress that literally have to completely upset 3 players.
I mean in sport it happens a fair bit, unseeded players have been known to come through and win huge competitions in a variety of different sports. I mean it doesn't happen every day but it does happen, so it's just something we have to live with. I just think once there is a well established list of rankings pools will work really really well, there's a reason why alot of big tournies in America use them.
Also, and I know the organisation could be tricky, but after pools are completed I don't see why a best of the rest bottom 16 tourney couldn't be run. It would get people to hang around and play/chat/interact more and really help boost the community.
I don't know if any of my suggestions are valid because I'm really pretty unaware of the effort required to put them in to place, but those are my 2 cents.
Lord Bowser would definitely be interested