Regarding the format, I was a big fan of the Belgian format. My impression was the the "bye" week the Articunos ended up having last year was the exception rather than the rule, and the format is generally good at ensuring that's not the case. 9 weeks also seems fine for me, it's the normal duration of an 8-team team tournament (7 week round robin + 2 weeks of playoffs) so if, for instance, we were to up the ante to 8 teams we would get the exact same tournament length. I was a big fan of how neck and neck stage 1 was up until the very last moment last year, the format worked very well in that regard, whereas this was a big problem in, for example, ALTPL, where we followed the more traditional format. So, in my opinion, we should keep the Belgian format.
In terms of # of players and tiers, I think we could definitely fill up 30 slots with competent OU players - I've been of this opinion since RBY Invitational Play-ins. Assuming proportional levels of sign-ups to RBYPL as compared to interest in play-ins, I don't think it would be a problem. In my opinion keeping the format would be the best way to go. However, what we can (and probably should) do is lock-in the format amongst managers and hosts once we have a clearer picture of what signups look like. It's what we did last year, and it was ultimately the correct decision because we had a completely different picture of things after 1 week of player signups.
I am firmly against 8 teams. While I do think it's possible to start 6 players in each lower tier, because of overlap, 8 players seems extremely ambitious to me. Assuming the 50/50 distribution, 6x10 means drafting 30 OU slots and 30 lower tier slots with 12 subs (for a total of 72 players) and 8x10 means 40 OU slots, 40 lower tier slots and 16 subs (for a total of 96 players). I think we can all agree the latter is just not attainable. 8x8 is of course a possibility, since it means drafting 32 OU slots, 32 lower tier slots and 16 subs (for a total of 80 players), but that would mean cut either PU or Rands. In my opinion we should keep the 6 team format from last year.
If we collectively agree that 8x8 is the best format, then I don't think we should do 3x5, not because of symmetry, but because I think one of the greatest appeals of RBYPL is letting players that traditionally play other gens try RBY OU, and up and coming players have their shot in a team tournament. If that were to be the case then I'd definitely do 4x OU slots and we'd have to pick another tier to remove, which in my opinion should be done once we have a clearer picture of signups, just like I said before.
Regarding Bo5 in OU, it should absolutely be kept. From what I could gauge, the majority of top players prefers bo5 to bo3. And that is especially true for the ones who are likely to play in this tournament. Out of all, this is the matter I have the most firm stance on out of all, Bo5 OU should DEFINITELY be kept.
Lastly, I am also a firm proponent that UU, NU and PU should be bo5. Teambuilding is not difficult in these tiers and games are quick. There's no reason to not make them bo5, it brings the duration of each set up on par with Ubers/OU and helps mitigate RNG issues. I think we should still allow Ubers players to gentleman's agreement on bo3 vs bo5, with the default being bo3, but like it was said before, Ubers games tend to drag longer and team building is arguably harder. And while we're at it, might as well throw this agreement in for the remaining OU slots too. I could be convinced to make the remaining lower tiers be a gentleman's agreement instead, but the default should certainly be bo5.
