I don't really understand what you are trying to say, dragontamer. Of course UU is a competitive metagame, and naturally when constructing it we are only considering balance (i.e. making sure the number of viable pokemon is above a critical threshold, and minimising the number of pokemon banned).
I never said that all of UU is non-competitive, however, it is very clear from the previous discussions that at least some of the current UU crowd have non-competitive motivations for playing UU. OU-lite is one of these non-competitive motivations, and there are most likely others.
As I said in my post, pre-evolved pokemon (except for a short list of exceptions) should be banned from the start. I am sure that this is implicit in Obi's initial post too. The whole point of UU is to use different pokemon from standard, so there is no need to ever allow in pre-evolved pokemon excepting the short list of exceptions. This particular issue has more to do with the ontology of UU then balance. The purpose of UU is not to play a faster-paced or more offensive game or whatever else you might be talking about. It might happen to end up this way, but UU should not be constructed to suit those goals because the purpose is just to use pokemon that are not seen very often in standard play, hence the name underused, while maintaining balance through a set of bans (BL).
Please Colin, don't preach to me on this subject. While I may have not been participating in the latest UU discussions, I still have a few months worth of posts lodged in the
current UU/BL debate, as well as playtest experience in the developing UU metagame. This discussion should be beyond this point and implicit in every post by now.
Moving on...
While I personally disagree with say... forcing UU to be a "faster pace metagame", I realize that this feeling is in UU right now. This is the direction the community seems to want to go towards. Again, I can note that for several months people were willing to test pokemon without any counters in the UU metagame, like Hitmonlee, Pinsir, Scyther. We were willing to add sweepers like Swellow in, and there are people who are on the fence with other powerhouses like Torterra.
Further, when Pinsir is finally decided to be banned, what are the reasons that people are coming up with? Balance may have been part of the key, but with reasons like
"Diet Heracross" or "
Heracross-lite" coming up, it is
clear that balance is not the only motivation in UU.
Again, a straw poll would be enough to jump start this trend. Something so that we can see what people want and how we should set the priorities in defining this metagame. We need to know what the community wants in UU, and then we need to create the UU environment to reflect what people want.
EDIT: And I should note: if people want a competitive balanced environment, then this is all good. I just have a feeling that OU already satisfies that requirement, and that UU should have a feel of its own.
Lots of people to be sure want to incorporate things like "these issues" (which seems to be a masquerade for what you usually call "fun") into the conception of tiers. But "fun" is not well defined, and it should not be referenced unless you define it in a way that is actually relevant to the tiers. For example, maybe playing a game with many viable pokemon is "fun". Then creating a balanced metagame and making the game fun are one in the same.
Just because it is undefined does not mean we cannot take them into account. Currently, there is a widespread consensus of no-autoweather in UU. Any reason why? I don't know, the only explanation I have is fun and anti-OU-lite. (Of course, I have my own reasons, but I'm trying to give a feel of the community on this)
As for public opinion, I am sure that a straw poll wold conclude that the most fun metagame would be similar to standard except with Blissey, Breloom, etc. banned, as well as every move with less than 100% accuracy being modified to hit every time, and the damage formula modified to always do max damage. And sleep would always last four turns, unless it's your pokemon that is asleep, in which case it would last just one turn. Public opinion has no role in constructing a balanced metagame. However, it might serve a useful function in identifying which pokemon is centralising the game most at a given time -- something that is so far nontrivial to do analytically. But perhaps only people with a rating above a certain threshold on the experimental UU ladder would be allowed to vote in these things, to ensure that they had actually played the game.
And it's not as if public opinion is a static source of insight. As rule changes are promogulated, public opinion will inevitably shift.
I'm trying to point out that balance may not be the only important issue here, especially in UU. Balance is indeed important, but solely focusing on balance will leave potential UU players out of the loop. Unlike OU, UU's community is small and fragmented. But we do have a few unifying ideals.
Second: the idea that you are willing to create a metagame that does not serve the Public's needs, but instead changes the public opinion, is somewhat scary to me. I am of the opinion that the metagame should serve what the community wants. UU needs to serve a purpose that OU does not fill.
Again, we need the public opinion on this one. Statistics are nice and all, but we need to set a target before we can start aiming for it. Lets start with figuring out the complete motivations of the UU crowd,
and then use statistics to create the metagame that they want.
I have a feeling that some people may not even care how
big the BL list is, and would prefer better reasons for unbanning pokemon. I can't speak for Forsety here, not should you rely on the opinion of someone to remain constant for 5 months. This is why I'd like to again figure out the motivations for playing UU before starting this process. And of course, there are people who do feel balance is the only issue. But lets see which one is more accepted before building this metagame.
I don't see any advantage to updating every three months as opposed to every month. The only conceivable reason is to inject some conservatism into the process perhaps making tournaments easier to organise (seems dubious). But this is not really a concern for the ladder format and I would rather just update each month. Of course, what Smogon's tiers do may be different.
An environment needs enough time to be analyzed so that it can be competitive. It currently takes 1 full month to determine the popular leads and popular pokemon (usage statistics). By the time statistics come out, the metagame would have changed, and the statistics obsolete.
Every 3 months will guarantee at least 2 months of statistics and analysis into the metagame before it is changed. It should promote a more healthy competition in UU.