Makes perfect sense yes, but the whole debate is due to when one player wants to play a harder song because it's they strength, and instead has to play a non stamina heavy tech song... Which is their opponents strength.

It goes back to ancsik's agreed range logic of probably being the best course of action, even though it basically implies that most of the rounds that would absolutely require it will be going to 3rd song random anyways.

I added in the "pick when you register" part to address another issue I had noticed with agreement between players: doing it at the time of doesn't work out so favorably for the player who feels a need to ask (assuming players are being greedy).

If a player is asked "can I pick a 12?", it probably means a stamina player feels cornered, and either way, the first player has the ability to arbitrarily accept or deny the request based on their opponent.  That request is likely denied.

If asked "can I pick Over the Rave?" (or any other specific song), then the other player is free to accept/refuse individual songs and the asking player has shot himself in the foot.  That request is only being accepted if the song is advantageous to the other player.

I had originally thought of the range system as an extension of asking the other player at the beginning of that match, and having the answer affect both players' choices (if desired), but realized it still puts too much power in the hands of the player who is being asked permission.  The goal should be to encourage players to be open to a wider range (hence opening both ends of the spectrum to connect increased and decreased difficulty choices) and to maintain fairness (hence making you stick with your decision between rounds) while still allowing players would are that heavily put off by being forced to play things way out of their range to protect themselves.

Per a lot of the discussion we've had, it's doubtful a player that felt a need to protect themselves would have the general skill needed to win the bracket, but this makes the tournament less daunting.  Also, in a lot of cases the stamina chart is used as a sure thing win because a stamina player can't win on easier charts, meaning the tiebreaker (likely to be a 9-10) is biased toward the tech player, and the match would end similarly with or without the stamina chart, but we spare the timid player the very unenjoyable experience of being forced through a stamina chart that they will likely refuse to play.  It's very unfortunate if 12 vs. 11 is that big of a difference for the stamina player's likelihood of winning, but that player is overspecialized if a 12 is a sure thing, but a stamina-oriented 11 is too risky to pick against a tech player. Ultimately, even with some of the biases as mentioned, the range system is more friendly to the stamina player overall than capping it at 11 to avoid scaring the tech player away.

@Neko: Having tiebreakers is definitely more exciting that having a lot of one-sided victories, so long as the players aren't so mismatched that the tiebreaker should not be happening (in that case, it's usually time to question the rules).  The system won't cause completely mismatched players to go to a 3rd song when they should not need to, it will only apply to cases where the use of a 12 vs. a hard 10 or 11 is the difference between crushing defeat and a more reasonable outcome for a tech player; if a "tech" player can handle themselves well enough on stamina-oriented 11's to take down stamina players, they'll probably be allowing 12's - it's mainly the few players who are struggling to pass 11's that are saying they simply would not enter if 12's were valid against them.