I was going to reserve judgment on the new points system, but I feel I now understand it well enough to conclude there are some major issues. I realize the response has been overwhelmingly positive, and if I'm the only one who feels this way, so be it.
What is the issue this was intended to resolve? In my opinion, the major issues on this site (aside from full compliance with the official rules) are players abandoning when it's not going their way and the length of time it takes to set an abandoned country into civil disorder. If the thinking was that this points system would dissuade players from abandoning, I don't see it - the system doesn't penalize going into CD any more than just plain losing, and, anyway, it has no impact on people who don't care about their points. Additionally, if you come in with 100 and you CD your first or second or even third game, you'll just get reset to 100 anyway.
I think the points system is a good indicator of something (not sure exactly what - maybe success over a period of time? - win ratio and average finish are more meaningful statistics), but I strongly disagree with using points to "buy in" to games. It totally closes off certain games to certain players (which you can do with a password anyway). I wondered whether experienced players would want to play with me in the future? I would provide stiff competition but little by way of reward other than enjoying a well-played game. How many of the players with several hundred or a thousand-plus points will agree to play a game with a stake of 10 points? Would you all agree to play or does this system dissuade any of you? I did see that Noodlebug was willing to play with players with lesser points and observed the dynamic that they might all come after him - but for his points, not based on the game at hand. Isn't that a form of meta-gaming? And should the site be encouraging meta-gaming in any form?
My alternative suggestions:
-Do away with the points system and stick with the old rankings and option to password games (again, why have both the buy in system and passworded games?)
-Keep the points system to rank players, but do away with betting points on games and requiring people to have enough points to be able to put up enough of a stake
-Make CD occur faster for missed turns. If 7 of us got together and played at my house and planned to play Saturday and Sunday and someone didn't show up Sunday, we'd probably make a couple of phone calls; if we didn't find anyone right away we'd set him in CD and keep playing - we wouldn't wait a predetermined number of turns. The first person (the original player or someone else) who said they wanted to take over the CD country would get it. A player wouldn't have the right to be absent for 4 or 5 phases and then be entitled to return
-Create an "abandon game" button that would set a country into CD instantaneously.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. These are just my opinions, and if all the high point players are willing to play in low stakes games, it may not matter. I believe that points should be reserved for tournament play and that there is no need to mix gambling with Diplomacy.