Sami qualified as #1 in the group stage, therefore it stands to reason that he would normally end up in the top 4. However, he had one match where he slipped.
Something that never happened to him before, plus he lost by quite a margin (7-4) which in itself should at least make one consider the possibility that he didn't play as well as previous years to secure his way to the semis like previous years (which was blatant to me and I'm not the only one). And when you look at the rest of his CDM (no semis reached in multi and a poor TT final) that theory gets confirmed.
Let me ask you this, do you honestly believe that if Sami and Jey played their match 10 times that Jey would win more than half of the encounters?
Beyond the point even if I could just answer that I have no idea what might have happened in that case (precisely because Sami wasn't even close to his level of past CDM/E). The CDM rewards how you perform on the D-day just like any cup does (the fact that it's called championships is pure semantics, the format is that of a cup) even if we changed it to double elimination that would not change, if anything it would make things worse as it would only take two losses to get kicked out quickly. Even a player like you could be eliminated after two matches with a bad draw combined with bad luck and you would then bitch on here about how unfair the format is.
Also it would mean that most players would only play a couple of matches for the whole CDM anyway (because no, DE + Group Stage isn't a logistical possibility) and that's like giving those blokes the finger (being one of the potential finger-receiver I'm not so fond of the idea).
Obviously a player needs to have the skill to threathen someone like Sami to begin with. Jey has that. When the skill levels of two players are somewhat overlapping, the better player does not automatically win each and every match. It's fairly basic game theory (and has nothing to do with vague alien forces I assure you). Variance can have a big impact, especially in single elimination format. I once knocked out Neo in MR; he got me back 7-0 the next year. Had our skill levels significantly changed? Not really. Just the dynamics of the matches that were very different. To buffer a little for the variance, I would favour a double elimination system. We only meet up like this once a year, so why not make the pecking-order a little more accurate?
See what I've just wrote. Unless you change the CDM to an actual championship (and we don't have the means to do it) what you point out isn't something that will change anytime soon. And even then, the skills wouldn't be the only decisive factor. They never are. Just like you pointed out once you're good enough to threaten the big dogs, beating them becomes possible and that's where other factors like motivation (which you can easily lack of when you've won it all, like, even Neo lost GP!) start to matter. Change the format as much as you want, that part will never change. I think what you're trying to fix is something that's a natural part of EVERY kind of competition in EVERY sport/game.
And like I already hear you arguing that you don't want it 100% perfect but only 'more accurate' (I personally think it's pretty accurate, I mean Sami hardly showed a level that's even top 3 material and as we have lots of players with a common overall level it follows that the battle for the second place should be tough). Well alright then explain to me how a system that potentially kicks out a good player in two-three matches in case of a bad draw (even assuming the draw is not random that might still happen) is any more accurate. At best it's good at ranking the top 3-4 which is already pretty accurate. Even putting the fact that DE excludes 75% of the players from the competition aside, using it DE for this reason isn't pertinent.
EVO (biggest SF community event worldwide) has been using double elimination since its conception. Try telling SF players that EVO has no soul and see how they will react. They will probably punch you in the face or think of you as a talking bag of nonsense.
As for double elim @ CDM, of course it can be done, it's just a matter of making a clever system and not being stuck in conservative thinking patterns.
Talk about a strawman argument. Only sheer intellectual dishonesty can lead one to think my post implied that any tournament using DE has no soul (that would mean it's the case of some of my tournies on SNESOT and believe me I think my SNESOT tournies shit soul by the bucket) but hah well I'll elaborate. The EVO and the CDM never worked on the same scale or even had the same goals so it follows that they don't have the same soul. EVO is a multi-tournaments event that rewards in cash prizes players that have qualified for it. CDM is a one-game tournament on one week (that in itself will always prevent it from being at a similar scale) that gathers a relatively small community in comparison that only gets a decent crowd to attend because it's open to everyone (which isn't what a DE format would allow). Ours is a niche game that will never get the popularity of the vs fighting competitions (that don't even work around only one game themselves which is pretty telling) so to think we can have what they have (i.e qualifiers, cash prizes things like that) is quite delusional to say the least.
Also : beyond the 'open to everyone' appeal the CDM has, the reason lots of newcomers keep coming back -on a merely competitive level- is because they want to improve their rankings. That's how we got blokes like Salim, Jey, Jarmou, Conor or even me to be fully part of the whole thing every year after their first participation. Do you think we would've come back every year with a DE format that would have excluded most of us after two matches? I for one would not have. At best I would have attended to CDM 2011 and given up after realizing my improvements were useless (cause I would prolly have been kicked out after two matches in 2011 as well).
Anyway my point is :
-DE will exclude a big part of the players and discourage them to come back
-It will prolly weaken the community that is already a small one by strongly decreasing the CDM's attendance
-It's trying to solve a problem that doesn't really exist IMO (and I'm pretty sure it's not just me who feels that way)