I've thought about similar, relegating 8 and promoting 8 to always have a representative from each federation. But doing it with 16 teams is too brutal haha. I thought anything from 23 to 31 teams would be ok and only playing each other once. I think
@Monoethnic Social Club might have compared it to a wrestling comp haha. But then, having 11 to 15 matches per weekend is just too damn expensive.
As much as I'd love to have leagues splitting evenly all the way down the pyramid, it really does seem that a group stage format between the NPLs is the most cost effective way of promotion to NST, and it's still fair as well. I'd have the first competition with the top two from each fed, and every season after that based on performance coefficients.
Also, we can't make playoffs between tiers possible with a connected pyramid because the top three tiers would need to be played all at different times of year, so they finish at different times. This is assuming A-League stays with the mostly global calendar (which they will), and the federations stay in winter (which they will).