32 was last time. Why not 48 ? Sounds like a good enhancement. With cascading qualifiers that are the way to go anyhow the bracket would look like:I agree with you that not all of the 32 players in HC3 had a chance to qualify, however with KotD3 we had the opposite happen where seed 46 (chart) actually managed to qualify for the main event. I think this shows how much more competitive the top is compared to only a year ago. Having 32 players try to qualify is kind of the minimum in my opinion. Most of them won't manage to qualify, but given that the ladder still has flaws you can still have people in the bottom of those 32 seeds with actual chances to make it to the main event.
But wtf do we know about HC4 maybe they go totally ham and change the format they went for last times. Difficult to discuss without knowing anything.