1: Do you want to have chess variants like chess960 or crazyhouse included in the next season?

Chess960 YES, that is a good training. Crazyhouse NO, it is too crazy and not much useful for training.

2: Do you want to have again a knockout stage in the next season or a "normal" one?

Maybe it would be better to simply split tournament after the qualifying stage into the Top 8 tournament, and the Challengers tournament. Finals should be 4 rounds, Swiss system. But that is only my opinion.