Roster assign was the brainchild of at least one of our Canadian commuting BALPA guys (despite various unofficial polls being strongly against the idea). It was his belief that a pilot would have a bit more time to swap such a trip to a more suitable date when compared to the old forced draft, and therefore it was better. The thing is, EOT swapping is now so restrictive that it's nigh on impossible to swap that additional trip, and you haven't got any space left on your line to swap it to anyway! It does however mean that the company can now tell a pilot to go jump when they say they can't do the trip due to childcare, because they've had plenty of time to sort something. This means the company can rely on the work being covered using the system, and they can therefore run with far fewer pilots. In my opinion, roster assign is the equivalent detriment to BA pilots as all of the changes we've experienced in the last 15 years all added together!