I am ambivalent on the rule change and the league name.
On the tournament front, I'm not too interested in getting into a long tournament that doesn't accommodate all of the pawns that want to play. If a tournament gets put together that allows everyone to play than I am probably in as well whether it starts now or 6 months from now. Any variant works for me, but I think the open variants work better for big tournaments because they are faster. Perhaps mini rush, double round robin?