I believe there is a conflict in the goals of trying to bring on new chains and many new indexers at the same time. Ideally, these would have been two different programs.
Newcomers need a fair chance to participate in the program, and I agree that this is important. In my proposed changes, I have removed the Gateway and its token economic elements that could unfairly favor indexers with larger stakes. This also has the added benefit of simplifying things for organizers, in my opinion. These things are not easy to get right, and that is why I would love to see the community refine and improve upon this proposal.