Each player that makes it to the seven wins a small cash payout. Maybe $100, maybe $500. Instead of "eliminate your opponent's number" you basically crib something akin to a multiplayer version of the Trivia Race from Trivia Trap. First to five or seven or whatever times well in run-throughs wins five grand that's theirs to keep (bumping up from the $2500 from the old series for inflation) and goes to the Wonderwall, played almost verbatim.
I do like the idea of the cutthroat battle, but it's "blink and you miss it" so I would keep it, but I would change two things:
1. Everyone is defending an answer, but we get rid of them being number specific. Every game begets a different theming, so each cutthroat round everyone gets one of the seven colors of the rainbow, or the name of a country, or a Best Actress winner, etc.
2. You get a point for defending your answer, you steal a point from a player who owns the correct answer you give, and you lose a point for a wrong answer. Play til the klaxon sounds.
At the bottom of the hour, the top seven go back to the pool, and we do it again. If the same player makes it to the Wonderwall both games, they get an extra $5,000 bonus on top of the previous $5K x2 for the clean sweep, regardless of what happens at the Wonderwall either time.
I don't think you have to incentivize winning both games with an extra cash prize, since the bonus round
is the incentive and has such a high payout for even an average effort. Assuming we're keeping everything the same, only going halfway up the stack is still worth $50,000.