1 Looks like the opening-round matchups have been expanded to four characters each, meaning the total field is now 384 characters plus a few to account for ties. Then again, there are an awful lot of powerhouse franchises returning for a second, third or even fourth year (Haruhi, Lucky Star, Clannad, Higurashi, Hayate, Minami-ke) in addition to a strong slate of newcomers (Saki, K-ON!, Strike Witches).

2

Man, they're really overdoing it this time.

I count 22 characters from Saki, and I could have missed one. 8 from Strike Witches. (and they left out Bishop! Or I missed her.)

They even included Teru from Saki, and we've never even seen her face.

3 Well, by expanding the first brackets from 3 to 4, they're thinning down what we can expect the average winning vote to be (assuming Saimoe doesn't suddenly become super-popular, which I don't think we can expect, heh.) What effect would that have? It would make it easier for the meta-game to work in favor of characters who aren't tremendously moe themselves, which isn't great for them but might be good for the tourney as a whole; better to have people planning and plotting about the first round then watching match after match of nothing much interesting, after all.