I don't wish to beat a dead horse nor to seem ungrateful to site admins attempting to be responsive. But, I wanted to follow-up my first post above with a specific example of a tournament I just started in, which browsing through the tournament listings seems to be reasonably representative:
Tournament 24742
This particular tournament is listed as 1565-1740. But the actual entrants are 4 players in the 1400s or lower, 10 in the 1500s, 3 in the 1600s and 1 in 1700s. The median entry level is 1580, just a few points above the "minimum" entry, and the overall range is 474 points. I realize some of this may have to do with our tournament entry calculations, which are a necessary evil to combat sand bagging (but I would also argue that the newly expanded band ranges amplify the effect of the Tournament Entry rating penalty on the overall tournament pool).
The point I made above and am trying to illustrate practically here is that the new band calculations must necessarily skew the band size for tournaments at different rating levels. Tournaments nearer the middle of our site player population will be narrower band limits, and tournaments at the lower and higher ratings levels will have to be more broad rating limits. In my opinion, a band spread of 200+ points is too large to achieve the aims of a banded tournament, which is to group together players of comparable level. (200 points represents a win expectancy of ~75% for the higher rated player, as per the site FAQ.)
In this particular tournament, I stand to benefit being the upper rated player, but my point is the same wherever a player may fall. I would not wish to be at the lower end entering a banded tournament full of 1800's and 1900's either, just like I wouldn't want an "easy" path. When I want a general tournament, then I can enter one (which I do time-to-time) and enjoy the variability in randomly assigned appointments of all skill levels. However, in my opinion, the purpose of a BANDED tournament is to group similar players so that most games are balanced and entrants have a realistic shot of winning overall, and I think the new system does not do that as well as the old system.
I'll acknowledge that no system will meet all needs, and I can understand (and relate to) complaints about some tournaments filling up slowly (or never). So, there are trade-offs to be made and likely there is no "perfect" solution available.