Zabber, my sole agenda is to get people to wake up to the fact that this system is not a magic bullet. You've said it yourself, and so have the other contributors to this thread who already work under such systems.
I think you should be extremely careful about how much of yourself you invest in this venture because when it doesn't live up to their expectations they'll blame you. I've seen it happen before, and so have you. The pilots of ALT are generally a thankless bunch and rather unforgiving of the perceived shortcomings of those who actually muck in and try to change things. The most vocal are the ones who never do a toss themselves.
Congratulations for trying. I appreciate your efforts, but don't encourage the halfwits in their fantasies about how wonderful this will be. The splits are already showing over the seniority/ bidding priority ratio.
"The union has made it clear to the company that we will not be giving any productivity/rule changes for free or at all.
That is the factual situation."
I doubt thats possible, with the best will in the world.