Do not forget, we have a public discussion board dedicated just to talking about stairs here:

http://brainking.com/en/Board?bc=108

I like the idea of "compressing" the stairs every once and awhile - a lot of people like to play, and if they end up getting so far ahead where they can no longer be challenged, or are playing the same 1 or 2 people over and over again, that gets boring fast. I have seen on some other sites on ladders where the top player will quit & start over at the bottom just so they can play games (point of a game site) - so hopefully the compression of steps will keep players active.