Chief B,
For the unitiated it might be worth putting a bit of meat on that, this is my no doubt flawed model of how it works/will work, you may well see it/describe it differently:
Present system:
Stage 1 - "pick your line" out of the published list, which may or not have anough work on it to be a complete roster. Fail to get a line you'll be rostered ("Blindline") or on Reserve. If you have a line then move to Stage 2
Stage 2 - Pick trip(s) to fit your line to make up the hours. On seeing Stage 2 results you may have an vague or not so vague idea of your final roster.
"Stage 3" (my term, newish process): Final Assign (FA) - Company Assigns work into gaps or even re-jigs your roster to optimise (maximise?) your work. You're most vulnerable if post Stage 2 you're a bit low on hours and/or have left big gaps on your line, so you can get a bit of a feel beforehand of whether you're likely to get extra work assigned or not.
All in all a lengthy process.
Under one of the possible 2017 systems:
Stage 1 stays as is.
Stage 2 and "Stage 3" are combined. You may get what you ask for but the company may also optimise the roster (i.e. change what you had before). So whilst it's correct to say there will be "No Final Assign/Draft Assign" the assignment of work is almost certainly going to happen, but it now takes place in the combined Stage 2/3 process. It's a much quicker way of doing things for sure but many have concerns that the process is more than somewhat opaque, to say the very least, because so much can be hidden in the name of "optimisation". If you end up with a roster far far removed from your bid it will be almost impossible to analyse why you got what you got and whether you have been miss-handled or not, because it may have taken umpteen iterations of optimisation to get there.
How it works out in reality you'll see, personally I hope out of Dodge by then
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(BTW folks a Health Warning - the full rule set is so complex it's possible only one person in BA understands how it all works, and is contained in a document the size of a small novel...the above precis is very definitely a precis of a precis of a precis)