Age restrictions
No thanks. If there is one thing I have seen it is that kids get exploited like no tomorrow in this industry. Whether it is with them getting bullied and mistreated in EU, kept as 'reserves' or 'secondaries' without pay in KeSPA team house so they have a potential shot at going pro, or just fucking up their careers hoping for a chance this interaction is far from healthy. Yes, there is an argument that people like Pobelter get screwed by age restrictions there is a contrary argument to be made that it being promoted as a career path itself is a bad thing- as is done in the client itself. As for sports, tell me you haven't heard of kids trying to make it big and crashing with their dreams and no fall backs. I know I've seen at least one case.
I think NA itself would benefit a lot more if Riot moved their based to the East Coast
As long as there are latency/infrastructure problems you are inserting a 'ceiling' which people can't rise beyond. Several player habits and mechanics are inaccessible at a high ping, and this makes it impossible to compare to a region which has single digit ping. For all the trash spewed about Western players being the same level as CN/KR and only real disparity being in teamplay, it is utter garbage. And delusion as people may wish to be, an entire region playing on bad ping is linked to the extremely low quantity of internationally relevant players.
for NA players to play on EUW Solo Q
Other than ping, if NA is to develop as a region they need their own soloqueue. I will further add that this is a mentality/attitude issue. NA loves their non-toxic environment, even if that means a known troll who plays SP Fizz can hit rank 1. Let that sink in, a known troll, actual toxic tilter can hit rank 1. That is the quality of gameplay.
Right now the West might fall even further behind if these things don't change because Korea and China is interacting
EDG and AHQ were practicing together so don't forget TW alongside CN/KR.
This is the weakest year KR has had in forever. And if the trend continues, I don't think it will to this extent, of best KR players being picked up KR isn't going to get much better. The HUGE depreciation in quality of Junglers has messed up the macro play of the whole region, and that is the loss on one role. I don't think people even now realize how big a loss the sister team system's removal has caused. Western teams are careful about who they scrim and even then there are stories of people copying strats. KR was free to do whatever, each team had at least 2 people per position to practice lane/understand patches with or whole teams to work on macro play. That liberty doesn't really exist anymore.
But the most important thing that people need to realise is that the entire league (and the Challenger Scene) need to improve in order for the best teams to improve.
Can't be said enough. This point was raised in early S3 when the LCS system was introduced but has been largely ignored in NA. Everything from bo1, single elimination, organizations doing some real BS(Coast/Final 5 caming both spots on top of everything to use a recent example) have gone on and greeted with tacit approval. The bracket structure for the qualifiers was dumb as hell, but apparently Altec receiving/not receiving a handshake is more important. I don't want to go into the issues here, I'm not knowledgeable enough to speak confidently of them all, but my larger concern is that they aren't even taken seriously. When LMQ first came to NA I raised a point of imports and comparison with the SC scene. Other than being hailed a racist(I mean I get xenophobe if you are particularly dumb, but racist doesn't even make sense) that didn't really achieve much. Yet here we are, needing translators to interview 1/3 of the NA LCS players and Riot still changes their player movement restrictions. I saw your post a while back. I don't have it in me to be personally invested/following the CS scenes. I barely keep in touch with 4 pro scenes in my spare time, not uncommonly at the expense of other stuff. In fact I daresay it is unfeasible to actually manage that in human hours. I do believe there are purely administrative and structuring methods to abate several of the CS woes, but to expect popularity/viewership regularly is strange with the way the LCS format works. I don't know if that is a limitation of the LCS system or not, but there is an actual hurdle here which can't be stopped entirely in such a short span. There is a legitimate problem with the CS garnering less attention than several individual streams or games not being broadcast live, with the lack of development of real narrative or adequate work by the organizers which could however go a long way in achieving some of the goals you had highlighted.
Either way, don't expect much. When you have years of a CS being used as a retirement path for pros who don't realize their days are over, bad; near exploitative structuring and a less than responsive show runner, there are bound to be mess ups. And at this point I believe they are too attached to expect reasonable change in the remaining years of this now plateauing game.