Suggestion for a 3rd type of tournament (or at least scoring)

Right now we have 2 types of tournaments, Swiss and Areas. Swiss which everyone played in OTB tournaments, but online you can easily spend more time for the next round to begin then playing, that coupled with the next round beginning at an undetermined time (especially if incremental time is involved) leds any normal task around the house, can result it the round starting without your presence at your computer. Areas (with there unique scoring) are rating based this leds to a situation where the most talented players are at a disadvantage from the outset of the tournament, in the last week on 3 occasions I have seen players with Elo of <300 leading the tournament the player below him/her was rated 1700. There are two reasons for this 1. Low rated players tend to play faster (more opportunities for points); 2. Their opponents are significantly less experienced. Under normal circumstances the 1700 hundred player will not even get the chance to slow down the lower rated player because they will not be paired against them. My suggestion is 1. Have Swiss paring, or 2. Weight the game based on the strength of your opponent (i.e. a win against a 1700 is worth more than a win against a 300). As it stands now if the 1700 plays the same number of games as the 300, and their results are the same (e.g. WWDWL) their score is the same ever though the 1700 player played significantly stronger opponents.  Would lower rated players play in such tournaments? Maybe if they want to test/improve their skills,if not then that is what sections are for. This doesn’t even address Sandbagging?

There are two types of Arenas: Score based and Rating based. The latter are designed so that anyone can win them, not just the higher rated players.

No one is saying “get rid of arenas,” simply create a third type of tournament. Think of it this way 3 options are better than 2, giving the players more options in any form can only be good. If there is no support for the new type of scoring then the players will not signup for it. As for the “anyone can win” comment, that is what sections are for. One of the major problems with areanas is sandbagging, intentionally manipulating the rating system to be paired with lower rated players, this can be addressed by creating a 3rd type of tournament. In my first post I tried to be politically correct by mentioning sandbagging only briefly. But sandbagging in areanas is a major issue. Again 3 options are better than 2.