So, his head is currently being kicked in with the current system, so... if everyone was in open, he'd still be getting his head kicked in?
Yes he would, however the actual time spent doing said kicking would be a whole lot more varied in Open. Open would make the minute to minute stuff much more exciting. Currently people are grind UMing / one way bar chart chasing.
I mean, at the end of the day, its all about player numbers really. The more you have, the more people who have hauling, doing PvP, or whatever, and on average, you're going to have roughly the same quality of people between powers.
So skill has no place in making up that shortfall? One good, focussed player is worth ten lightweights.
So, yeah, i understand the game changes if we have open only, i don't expect there would be much difference in result.
The result would depend on a whole lot more factors than what we have now (work faster). And it would also be a lot more dynamic and unpredictable during the flying bits. I'd call that worth it.