Yeah, it is interesting to see how fixture teams are compiled by the various clubs.
I don't think there is any easy way of doing such a thing. And also then for the association to approve a team is competitive enough for the nominated grade.
You have players that only want to play with certain friends, top heavy teams, bottom heavy teams, injuries through the season, and so on. All of which have to be managed...somehow.
Also, if a team wins the season doesn't necessarily mean that all team members are capable of competing at the next grade up. Nothing surprising there really.
It is encouraging to see players moving up positions to the #1 or #2 spot in the grade first before seeing them move up a grade, but as pointed out it does sometimes come back to a need of finding a player to fill the gap. This may also mean moving down a grade to fill the lineup.
So this means that in some competitions you would probably get a tougher match at playing #1 in a lower grade than you would at playing #3 or #4 in the higher grade.
So although generally you would expect a better match in the higher grade, this won't always be the case.
I am starting to like the idea of a 3 person team more and more. And also shorter seasons would perhaps more opportunity to realign grades and seed out the stronger/weaker teams/players.

cheers,
gwl

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Viper - I guess you could say there is no universal rule for such a thing.  It is more about justification for putting a players into a higher level, letting them stay where they are, or dropping them down.  All of these things seem to come into account, often to the disappointment of players, eg:

• Not enough teams in the grade, so scratch up one more team (players go up), saves having a bye match..
• Standard not well balanced (drop a player/s down)
• Winning at least 70% of matches may not justify going up a grade, but at least mean the players will go up a position within the team if there is a vacancy, usually occurring by taking one player in the division up higher (the player with the greatest percentage of 3;0 or 3:1 or wins), making room for another player.
• Acting as a reserve in the grade above (gives the person a feel for what is ahead and how they handle it).

With the shrinking player base it does not help put a good comp together.  We used to have 4 person teams and a reserve, but now I think they have 3 person teams to try to keep the competition keen.  And, in social in-house competition there is often no teams, but the players put into Divisions of 6 or 8 players.  Some comps do have rules/bylaws which might cover some of these things too.

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