I love everything about this message - you basically cleared the table. I’ve bolded my favorites. Also, @FINSeRe is spot on. There have been many great posts overall - kudos to everyone.
While I agree that the BT ban was probably the right call since it's such an automatic skill, I also think SG shouldn’t go any further and should let the situation settle. Banning X-Factors one by one isn’t the way to go. People will always start chasing the next "worst" ability, and it becomes an endless cycle. I repeat myself, but every trait has its own issues, so it doesn't make sense to remove some XFs while leaving others. We know some of them are more powerful than others, but in general, it's not fair in my opinion. Sopuli explained why quite well.
It's easy to be hindsight-driven, but I think when the first-ever XF bans took place, it was a mistake. While it did make a somewhat shitty game a little more enjoyable, we should have just banned them all. So, I’m not criticizing the end result, just the approach. But as I said, it's easy to look back with hindsight, and I was also advocating for individual trait bans back in the day.
This brings us to the point where I think BT is the only one that should be put in "jail" at the moment. The next step is either to ban them all or let the game run as EA intended, with XFs included - even though I don’t like the latter option.
For me, the Sauna Cup was easily the best and most enjoyable gaming experience I’ve had since the X-Factors were introduced to the game. It just felt natural, in a good way. I'm sure many of you would have enjoyed it as well. I remember counting the GF and GA per game, which were almost identical to ECL. I know it was a different NHL game then, but when it comes to hockey, creativity never dies. There will always be different ways to generate scoring chances; you just need to adjust.
If we ban all traits, the start could be frustrating because we have gotten used to building our style around those X-Factors. However, after some time, I believe most of us would come to love it. As for the goalies, they aren’t overpowered; they’re just broken. EA's game mechanics are so RNG overall that goalies will save empty nets and let in soft goals, regardless of whether there are XFs or not.