whose idea was it to let a random person who already plays in gold or silver captain their own bronze team on the side? just let bronze players who want to be captain to be able to form a team themselves. maybe even separate auction and snake drafts where all the bronze captains square off.
We are not going to let people volunteer to captain, ever, in any kind of LTP. You can go to CC for that. In official LTP we want people who are committed and we trust to be around for months and take care of the dozen players they represent. Would you be happy to be assigned to a team with a captain who doesn't commit to his team? It simply doesn't work with a strictly organized league such as ELTP - Contenders does a great job at giving players freedom like this.
also, where did that come from? when did any captain complain it was hard for them to manage 3 tiers? i don't recall anyone complaining it's too stressful and just too much weight to handle.
Then I guess you haven't been listening to the right people, and you can't speak from personal experience. Captaining three teams means sacrificing at least four evenings a week (and only one practice isn't ideal) which is huge if you're working, going to college or in a committed relationship. Sure there are people who can handle it but considering we couldn't even find eight players willing to lead a team last season in the first place we better make it an encouraging system where perhaps the players who have serious lives can also do something like this.
i personally didn't see any issue with how bronze worked out last season. it was definitely a step-up from s6 having much much less forfeits in addition to a generally higher level of play. in fact, people are lauding bronze more than criticizing it.
I'm happy you're happy with the way it is right now, but I'm afraid your opinion is not everyone's. I also feel like bronze felt a lot more natural part of the league than in S6, but nothing is perfect. Also there were in fact a lot more forfeits in S7 than in S6, though that is mostly to blame on the timing of S7 in the middle of the summer.