Yikes ... it took a while to get to the end of the thread! ... but I wanted to read it all before I posted.
I really like the elemental theory ... not sure if it's relevent to the '09 game, but I like it nonetheless.
I'm not much for raining on brainstorming ideas, but I've really gotta' doubt the N/S/E/W theories. I live in (near) Phoenix, and there aren't very many of us Phoenicians that consider ourselves "southern" ... there are hundreds of better cities to reference as "southern". They wouldn't have picked Phoenix if they were trying to hint at South.
The number 4 pops up a lot. 4 types/colors of flesh in the Opah (a non-schooling fish) makes me wanna' predict no alliances ... but I'm unsure if the powers-that-be are willing to remove that "mainstay" feature of our matches. Our regionals and/or nationals would take longer if it's not 3v3 matches. If it's only 1v1v1v1, promoting and/or eliminating 2 teams per match, will take more matches to complete.
And with the growing number of teams ... the ability to pull off an event in a long weekend becomes threatened if we only advance/eliminate 2 teams at a time.
Perhaps the allies aren't pre-determined, but rather, get determined based on your autonomous performance. a la the "get connected" reference the clue.
... enough rambling for now ...