The status ceilings and contribution limits were an interesting idea. They used a formula to calculate the maximum contribution for each ceiling. I think it was something like (limit - contributions) / slope. I'm not sure how the slope was determined. It did result in a nice distribution of owners. I think what really caused the issue was the gwei limit. I like that you couldn't buy your way in, but it caused the entire blockchain to get congested with high gwei orders that were just ultimately rejected by the contract.
RE: A tale of two ICOs.