Southern, and others, bit by the Nationals rule regarding early start league bump ups again

For a few years now, there have been no early start ratings and instead, players just played at their current level for early start leagues.  However, if they were bumped up at year-end, they became ineligible to play at the lower level at Nationals.

The problem is, some sections allow these players to continue to play on their teams through Sectionals.  This creates the awkward situation where a team wins Sectionals, but then may have their roster gutted if they have players that were bumped up for the current year.

Last year, a team in Southern won Sectionals but then didn't even have enough eligible players to go to Nationals, but others have been affected just by not having their best players eligible and having to go with weaker/smaller rosters.

This year, teams are being affected again.  I originally did my simulation and prediction of the 18 & Over 3.0 women, and Southern was far and away the team picked to win.  But when you remove the 8(!) players rostered who are now 3.5s, while they still have enough to make the trip, it is a much smaller/weaker roster.  This isn't just unique to Southern, but any section with early start leagues and this year the Southwest 3.0 women are in a similar situation with 5 players ineligible.

This really shakes up the strengths of the teams, and frankly puts those sections at a disadvantage at Nationals as they are not sending their strongest teams, as the Sectional runner up, or some other team beaten along the way, may be a stronger team when just Nationals eligible players are considered.

This isn't limited to the women either, the 18 & Over 3.0 men have also been impacted.  The Southern team has 7 players rostered that are ineligible for Nationals.

If you are from another section, I guess take advantage of it, but if you are on an affected team, I feel for you, but I also feel for the teams that lost to you along the way that could have perhaps been at Nationals if the eligibility rules were consistent across the sections and through the year.

What do you think?