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I don't care much about the "applicant vs recruit" thing, as we've always had applicants that never watched the show (and that IMO is even worse that recruits who never watched the show). But I do agree we need contestants with better personalities, that are fans of the show, and that are good TV without being caricatures. Come on, there are so many people in the world, how come they only run across the bland mactors? We just need to cut out camera whores, cut out production bias, and not cast people that run away from the cameras all the time.

However, while I do think the editing's been crappy lately, I don't think we can blame the slightly bloated casts. It is possible to have 18, or even 20, fully fleshed out contestants. Of course, it's always been difficult to insert double boots and all that when the cast is bloated, but I don't think that damages the character development. I think what may hurt the development is the tribe size itself. It's easier to flesh out contestants when there are not that many to show on the tribe; conversely, it's hard to adequately show everyone when the tribe is so big. Just look at Kelly and Brett from Galu.

So, maybe they should use the 3/4 tribes twist with bloated casts: make 3 tribes when it's 18 people, and 4 when it's 20. And not use some stupid criteria to separate tribes, like they did with Panama or Cook Islands. Just 3/4 tribes of normal people all around. I'd like to see that. Also, make those extra tribes actually last until the merge, and not transform them into 2 tribes after some episodes. I think that could work, especially because it even makes double boots easier: the winning tribe(s) have immunity, two losing tribes go to TC.

With that said, I like the idea of having only 15 contestants but letting all of them have at least 6 days together (even though it's not an urgent necessity - we've had some greatly developed first boots even recently). The day 2 challenge could be a reward one instead of an immunity one. Also, 15 contestants = 3 tribes. Yes, I really do love the idea of 3/4 tribes. It worked well enough on All Stars!