Let me take some of these comments/replies in bunches...which I do appreciate and recognize that each of us has a different and unique lens which informs our position or POV.
I don't play in any SF leagues, but it seems to me that any league larger than 12 makes SF unrealistic. Who wants to start Will Levis, Russell Wilson or Daniel Jones every week. And if one of your QBs did get hurt, you better hope you can get his backup off of the WW.
Change doesn't always make things better. Hell, I'm not even a big fan of PPR and EVERY league is PPR now. The biggest issue with SF is that in a larger leagues QB is going to be scarce and I think that presents an unfair advantage. Its all relative though since one mans unfair advantage is another mans "strategy"
What I would agree with regarding SFLEX leagues is that larger than 12 format and it is a no-go. Having 8 starting QB's not in active line-ups means that a majority of teams could still have a 'benched' QB. But if that number slips to 4 and now it's a minority of teams that can bench once...as much as I now prefer SFLEX, that's probably a bridge too far. As to the starting of lesser QB's though...we do that at the other positions.
IMO SF is much, much easier to tank your team for the whole season with a bad trade or draft, even more so in dynasty. I think in competitive leagues with knowledgeable owners this can be more fun/interesting. I think in casual leagues with owners who go more by gut and play just to have fun, it's boring and winds up cutting the competition down to maybe half of the owners. Even in competitive leagues I'll watch owners take huge risks on drafting seemingly mediocre rookie QBs with bad profiles in the early and mid first round because of scarcity and a desperate need for the position ahead of pretty much sure fire WRs and RBs. I think this year will be a prime example of that again. I guess in a way I like getting that free advantage, but when half the league is doing it to me it becomes kind of boring. I like competing against 11 other owners, not just the 3-4 savvy enough to understand the real intricacies of a SF league.
I'm assuming you're talking dynasty on early/mid 1st rounders on '(perceived) mid' rookies. If so...let's equate this to the NFL. Right now the debate for teams at the top of the draft is should they blow a Top 5 pick on Cam Ward/Shedeur. Both are acknowledged to not be in the same class as last years 1-3 options. But it's on the table and teams are having to weigh that position differently because of the reasons you just mentioned. TEN/NYG/CLE have a desperate need at that position and as such, lesser QB's are being considered with prime draft capital. If we think of ourselves as 'GM's', from my POV mirroring and creating conditions that reflect the types of decisions NFL GM's make was actually an original reason I got into FF in the first place.
To your point about casual owners...that's a different conversation and I know leagues have them because it's about the tradition of playing as a group - and people/priorities change through the years. And sometimes, you just need a 12th. Knowing the scoring dynamics is as important in knowing the players. I guess a question I would have is are there casual dynasty players? I've always thought of that group as 'very' engaged.
Right or wrong, seeing the Marcus Mariota’s of the world getting traded for highly valued picks or players has always been my turn-off.
I haven't seen anything like that in any of my SF leagues, and I have been playing SF format for 5 years.
I quoted this because there was a profile of response of those who did not like SFLEX, where I felt like the reasons offered had a bit of 'boogeyman' to them. Meaning - a concern that an outcome that doesn't occur and is not in the realm of reality to occur, would occur - and that's a turnoff.
Assuming 12 team Superflex - I’d suggest any team that drafts or rosters a 3rd QB, that player takes up 2 roster spots or one IR slot (even if the player is healthy). That helps limit the hoarding of QBs as carrying another QB beyond the one you start in the QB or SFlex spot creates a trade off which lowers the amount of lottery ticket RBs and other players you can hold.
In my experience, it doesn't need to be that complicated. QB hoarding does occur, but the downside and a counterweight is a thinner roster at other positions. That's assuming a standard 9/7 roster structure. If you are going to QB hoard, you need to have a plan...and the market can work against you as injuries/byes enter into the equation.
OVERALL: I appreciate the feedback. A very real factor that was brought up that I don't discount after reading some of responses is spending a season playing/trying on a format that owners don't like. I like many on this board am playing the back 9 in life. So one season represents a much larger percentage of the seasons I have left to play than 20 years ago. And for many owners casual or engaged (or at least a decent percentage), ...the commitment and desire to play FF may be year-to-year at this point. A season you don't enjoy could be the final nail so to speak.
Overall to me, you seem to be very hung up on fantasy emulating the real NFL (at least on the reply to my comment, and a few others in the thread). I am not, in the slightest, caring about that. I view them as two very separate and distinct things. And for every item someone points out where whatever league they play in emulates the real NFL, without exaggeration I could point out 10 in which it doesn't. I do not consider team managers in fantasy GMs, I do not think rosters in any way reflect an actual NFL roster, the scoring is not the same, the settings and rules are not the same. It has never and will never make sense to me. So any argument about anything in fantasy football that is built upon "well this is how it works in the actual league" pretty much has no merit to me whatsoever.
Don't take that personally, and I don't mean it as an attack. I've said a few times on these boards now, I'm not a "gatekeeper" on anything in life, nor am I a stubborn dogmatist who thinks my way is the only true/correct way. Play however you enjoy playing! I only say the above because those feelings have only grown stronger in me over the years as pretty much every change I've made in leagues that moves us further away from the way the real NFL works has wound up being a positive change that is well received by league members often making the leagues more balanced, more competitive, and more fun (IMO and the opinions of my league mates, even if they were reluctant to changes before being instituted). Doing away with team defense, doing away with kickers, PPR scoring (or half point PPR scoring), moving to 4 pt QB passing TDs, instituting a blind bid waiver system, moving to auction draft formats, playing an extra game every week against median scoring, etc. etc. Literally every one makes a fantasy league LESS like the NFL and almost all of them have actually become standard practice for most competitive leagues and favored by what I'd consider the more seasoned/"serious" fantasy players.
Regardless of all that, as it could all be discounted as just my personal experience; that is my experience and how I and all my league mates have come to enjoy leagues. It was certainly quite the hump, and in some leagues several humps haha, to get over this notion of trying to "emulate the real NFL". But it's universally resulted in a better product for us and often times been viewed in hindsight as "what was the point of trying to keep kickers for just because the NFL has them if they were completely ruining entire weeks and league parity?" I've never really heard a good answer there either, unless you count the good old "well that's the way it's always been". YMMV.
