Luis Reece is the 6th highest wicket taker in the division this season, with 48 wickets at 20.02 so I think bringing him in to the equation is a little harsh!
Derbyshire have some very good young players but more bowlers than batsmen and the biggest worry is Madsen isn't getting any younger and other counties will continue to try and persuade him to spend his twilight years elsewhere - same with Godleman. I don't even want to think about what would happen if those 2 went.
That's mainly because batting wise we don't seem to unearth many gems, we just seem to poach from other counties.
I don't think there is a huge problem with the competition as it is, average attendances are probably the same if not slightly better than they were 20 years ago, and we've been the best team in the world in the intervening period so again you have to look at where in the calendar they are putting it. Things will continue to get worse too because the Hundred is the ECB's new baby and everything is geared around making it a success.
They are that backwards they will schedule Championship games for Christmas Day and call it a failure because no one turned up and the pitch should have been covered better. That's what will happen with T20 - they will start putting matches on Tuesday/ Wednesday nights so crowds will drop by 10/20% maybe a bit more - purely because of the inconvenience of the time and not because people are going off T20 - and then BOOM the ECB can justify their amazing new toy.
The holy grail of Test cricket at the moment seems to be winning a series away, because this has become so rare.
The Sheffield Shield in Australia, as you will know has far fewer teams yet England have won an away Ashes series far more recently than they have so there's not really any evidence to suggest halving the number of teams would have such a positive effect.
Think that Luis Reece stat kind of backs up my argument Chris. He bowls at what, 75mph tops? Yet he's taking wickets in Div 2 every week. You could say the same about Stevens and Jesse Ryder when he played for Essex. That wouldn't happen on proper wickets.
As you say, the scheduling is a massive issue but it's a hard one to solve isn't it. We've only got a 10-week window in mid-summer and even without the Hundred you've got to squeeze loads of white-ball cricket in, because thats what makes the money.
The only real solution is to somehow play the first-class and T20 comps at the same time, another reason for splitting off the four-day game and creating a new comp under the ECB's direction. You could put the aspiring test players in one and allow the white-ball stars to play in the other.
Get your point about England and Australia but it's a bit reductive isn't it. If you look at it another way, you could say the Aussies are always competitive here (and everywhere they play really) while England get battered every time they go Down Under, apart from that one series in 2011. If you take that series out, we've won one game in Australia in the last 20 years.
Anyway, think I've taken up enough of this thread's time with my opinions on county cricket. If you want to continue the chat, feel free to send me a Pm mate.