Yes, while I do have the authority to choose what gets allowed, by opting for a transparent system claims of bias are much less valid. If I kept them solely through PM until the tournament release, then I could be accused of favoritism by allowing someone to keep X ability, while forcing someone to adjust Y. Transparent systems preserve the integrity of the tournament and I am not immune to making mistakes. This allows for others to address concerns with characters I may have overlooked.

If the by-product is also a more competitive tournament due to people being able to submit characters that they feel might operate better against the current field, then I am fine with that. I do not think someone will be able to come in and craft an new, effective character in 7 days that has advantages against every other character and be successful with it (since it likely won't get any testing). The matchups for the first rounds will be decided randomly via a public dice system, so it is even more difficult to try to make an effective countercharacter given the likely number of participants.