ABDC Season 5 selection process -- new and improved over past seasons!

At the NY auditions, I spoke to many of the producers and production staff members for ABDC and learned much more about the changes to America's Best Dance Crew's process for selecting their Top 9 crews to compete. The steps are:

• Step 1: Auditions or videos.Crews became eligible to compete through live auditions in six cities (Atlanta, Houston, LA, Denver, Boston, NY) or submission of an audition video. For both, the crews prepare an original 'crew choice' dance lasting 1-2 minutes
  
• Step 2: Callbacks. At the live auditions, the audition judges picked several the auditioning crews for callbacks, and gave them an overnight 'challenge' - the crews were handed music and told to choreograph a short group dance using a new prop, followed by short individual freestyles. The next day, these crews performed the 'crew choice' and the 'challenge' in front of audition judges. Afterwards, the callback crews got to perform only the 'crew choice' in front of a 3 member ABDC celebrity panel composed of two ABDC judges (Lil Mama, JC Chasez, Shane Sparks) and a member of a past ABDC Champion crew (Kevin from JabbaWockeeZ, Nichelle from We Are Heroes, Hok from Quest). These 3 'celebrity judges' decided whether a crew would move on to "Regionals." There was probably an equivalent private process for the crews that submitted audition videos but didn't attend a live audition.
  
• Step 3: Regionals selections. There are three regions, representing South (Atlanta + Houston), West (LA + Denver), and East (Boston + New York). The MTV producers and ABDC team will screen all the information and video footage for the crews that made it to Regionals. There may be some additional information gathering.
  
• Step 4: Regional audition TV episodes. The first three shows for ABDC 5 will feature footage from the auditions, focusing on regions. The shows will also feature a live audition with 5 of the crews who made it to Regionals. Each week, 2 of the 5 will be eliminated from competition. The first episode airs on Thursday January 28.
• Step 5: The top 9 compete! After the three regional audition episodes, ABDC is down to 9 competing crews, 3 from each region. And, we're back to the regular show format!

What do you think?