The best "tester" of determining the "best" player would be be a round robin format, where everyone plays everyone, and the winner of the most matches is determined to be the champion, and in case of a tie, either the total games won or a playoff race to 21 would determine the winner.
That's the format that was used way back when the World Championship was straight pool, and there were 8 or 12 players participating by invitation only.
You maybe could do this with 16 players with races to 11, which would be 240 matches in all, or a bit less than half as many as there were at the U.S. Open, and it'd be a lot more "fair" than any single or double elimination tournament.
Only one problem: How do you determine which 16 players get to participate? I'd go with 8 invitees (Filler, Shane, Wu, and 5 others) and the other 8 determined by play-in events, but that's just one possible suggestion. One thing's for sure: You'd sure get a lot of controversy!
And of course you'd also have to find a streaming service that could stream all the matches simultaneously, while giving viewers the option of switching from table to table. But if you could pull it off, it'd be the greatest event in the history of pool.
In round robin, your fate can possibly depend on two other players....
...and collusion is very possible....
Hardly ideal