A few suggestions:
(1) I'm not surprised that many of you are supporting a dollar-value-per-box system. Save for a drunken syndicator, the only place you'd be likely to see the show is on cable. I don't think GSN's originals budget even $10,000 per episode in prize money (on some series, I think it's much less), and many of your ideas would spend more than that on just the average maingame. This might just be the time to end that antiquated practice. Maybe there'll be something for winning the game, cash or prize.
(2) Sir Foster-Gray has some very intriguing ideas. Many are pretty good.
(3) Regarding Neumms, it might be possible that Thom McKee's episodes were exciting for two reasons -- the tie games and the large amounts of money involved -- two of the reasons that the original Twenty-One intrigued the national audience. I think, just like Twenty-One, that TTD can be the most boring game show on television if it's not played dramatically.
(4) The thought of using any B-E endgame in 2003 is hilarious. Ha ha ha [cough] [hack] [cough]. Keeping the spirit of the original is important, yes, but sometimes it's just a good idea to take a flamethrower to certain aspects of the original. Even stealing the endgame from the Jack Clark Caught in the Act unsold pilot in the trading rounds would be more true to tic-tac-dough than picking numbers hoping not to find a frighteningly bad computer dragon behind it :^)
(5) Just a nitpick, but whatever happened to nice, round numbers? I've seen $7000, $12,000, and $17,000 mentioned in this thread, and my mind is spinning.
Oh well, I'm done; fire away.