Emperor [delPalpatine[/del Hetherington always gets his way, Karth Vader had the deciding vote.

That's just one way you get to [deljames[/del rule.

Wouldn't it make sense if the 7 games were tied in with magic weekend? Either by having the magic weekend in the last 7 games, or by the team which is at 'home' in the magic weekend getting the Extra home game in the 8s section

I meant for 2015 but fair comment.

So exactly which challenges does it solve?

I would say that it:
makes the season more competitive - more games that mean something.
Gives us a decent play-off series
Provides a means to have P&R
Spreads more money to the lower leagues
Gives teams in the lower leagues something to aim at

Any changes to Dual registration. Dual reg for SL /Championship clubs could now become an issue.

No can do regarding the last part. For financial reasons clubs won't want as few as 11 home games a years. This new system will see them with either 15 or 14 home games. That's a big difference to their finances.

Don't dissagree, but that highlights exactly where the problems lie. Finances is number one, the product down the list. Those believing this is a monumental change in the right direction from a top level point of view are kidding themselves. From a lower level yes, top level no.

Yes, you may well see the first 10 rounds of the competition more meaningful than they would under the old system, but that will be offset by the meaningless fixtures at the end by 3 or 4 clubs. Possibly even worse, as by the 11th/12th round you will probably see at least two clubs already resigned to the bottom four finish and saving themselves for the play off format, therefore making their regular round fixtures meaningless again.

Where it will have a particular set back is on the development of youngsters into teams, as some won't take the risks, where they would have done previously, depending on when their easier games are.

That’s a fairly bold claim, there are pretty big match day costs and overheads, its pretty presumptuous to think there isn’t a break-even point simply on match day revenue versus costs. Leeds have about 10k season ticket holders and an average of about 15k. That would mean that another ‘free’ game would actually be a game where Leeds needed to open Headingly and have match day overheads and costs to cater for a 15k attendance, but actually only the ticket income from 5k fans. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a match like that make a loss.