Connection ErrorBad RequestThis page went staleSession ExpiredSign in requiredForbiddenNot FoundToo Many RequestsServer ErrorBad GatewayService UnavailableGateway TimeoutHTTP Version Not Supported
Session Expired
Your session has expired. Please log in to continue.
Sign in required
You need an account to do that. Sign in or create one — it only takes a minute.
This page went stale
Your security token was rejected, usually because the page sat open too long or you signed in elsewhere. Nothing was saved. Reload the page and try again.
Request Failed
We encountered an issue while processing your request.
Please check your internet connection and try again.
To be honest, I've never considered withdrawing from tournaments to be a bad thing. If a player can't play or doesn't want to for any reason, we can't force or obligate them. I know from experience that the worst thing is playing when you don't want to. This format isn't sensitive to withdrawals; if a player doesn't want to compete, another will take their place. It all depends on the player's goal in the tournament. If the goal is simply to play and compete against strong players, they can play all 7 rounds. But if the goal is only to get into the prize-winning places, why force themselves to play? If we consider the "only competing for prizes" perspective, more than half of the participants could have not even registered, as they aren't aiming for the prizes.
As for the format, I think the Swiss system is ideal when you need to determine X places out of N participants.