Just to recap. Sounds like most of you believe that it should be changed to at least 24-rule for 9-ball. With the higher handicap levels in 9-ball (7,8,9), that would provide more room for players to reasonably field a team.
Most of you like the 9-ball scoring system, because it's basically worthless to sandbag, due to the points awarded for the team, based on balls.
But, some of you are hesitant to raise to the 24-rule in 8-ball, because you recognize the advantages for team growth, and for welcoming new players. You have a concern that the 24-rule would significantly change the strategies that are involved.
I'm not saying that I totally disagree with you on the 8-ball 23-rule. There are many reasons to favor the 23-rule. I'm simply suggesting that 1 point, won't be as drastic as you're making it out to be. Yes, you could form a team of 6,6,4,4,4 which would be pretty nice. But, you could also form some teams to counteract that (i.e. 7,6,4,4,3 or 7,7,4,4,2 and 7,7,5,3,2 and others). Not to mention that these would be the handicap numbers that you'd want at the end of the year. And, as many of you in the APA have stated, you develop the skills and abilities of your players. Since the APA handicap system is more finely tuned than most others, it adjusts to reflect the current abilities of these players. Raising a skill level is encouragement and recognition for development of pool abilities. Also, higher skill levels, means extra games are played, which also further aids in the progress of those players. Knowing all of this, would require the initial team to start off lower than 24 (i.e. 7,5,3,3,3). There would still be a place for all levels of pool players, but it could help to reduce the issue of the team progressing and being over-capped by the end of the year. Obviously 25-rule wouldn't be wise, because it really would exclude a large market of new people to play pool, which is not what we want for league, or for the growth and expansion of the pool world as a whole. But, I suggest that 24-rule might have more advantages and less disadvantages than you might initially think.
As has been said, there are times when the captains have agreed to forgo the 23-rule. Not recommended, should not be done, whenever possible. Will never be done in any higher level tournaments. But, it didn't have nearly as much of a negative effect as some may have feared. It actually worked fine, and the teams still had a comfortable balance of players.
Also remember, just because there is a 24-rule in effect, does not mean you should field a 24 limit team. Unless you have enough lower rated back up players, your team needs to be under the team max, just in case you have a few players who become inbetween two levels (i.e. strong 4, weak 5). Or in case your team succeeds, and thus players would be mostly winning over the course of 20 matches, which would be prime rationale for a skill level raise to ensure the integrity of the game.
Plus, since most of you would like to raise to the 24-rule in 9-ball, it would be nice to use 24-rule in 8-ball just to maintain consistency. Obviously, as an absolute, the max team points don't have to match in 8-ball & 9-ball. Just for consistency and not creating confusion, it would be nice if they stayed the same.
Not saying that it has to be done... Just raising thoughts to ponder on... Looking at it from the pluses and minuses of both sides of the argument...
Things that make you go hmmmm........