1) Based on just the Salisbury - Bulls playoff, which was a match-up of two similarly close teams, seems like the balance is off (CT over emphasized)
2) That's seems like a fair goal. Higher ranked teams should generally be stronger teams, so even lower seed w/ ct on the road against a normal higher seed should still have the home team with the higher odds to win. IE, the CT would make it like the game is at a neutral venue, but not make up for being a weaker team overall.
Now that I'm thinking about this and reading through this discussion enthusiasm overall seems to make less sense. In playoffs, if a team came out and just put everything on the line, the opposing team would adjust and step up their intensity, if not voluntarily, a good halftime "talking" from the coach would do it.
Enthusiasm might be improved if it was looked at like team confidence in hattrick, something that is the result of how the team is winning or losing. Not something a coach or manager can just turn on or off.
"Well, no ones gonna top that." - http://tinyurl.com/noigttt