Michael Davies openly saying he wants to produce the show as if it were a "sport,"
they may need to introduce a major twist to shake things up sooner or later.
The first part is why the second part won't happen. Sports generally don't introduce game-altering changes on a regular basis. In the past couple of decades, there's been Major League Baseball's pitch timer... and anything else?
And despite Alex supporting the notion in interviews, and the writers even calling out, I never bought that idea that categories are much easier to play if taken top-down.
While I agree that not every category is made easier if played from the top to the bottom, there are instances when being exposed to earlier clues can help. For example, if a contestant is unsure whether a bottom-row clue is referring to Monet or Renoir, if a previous clue in the category already mentioned one of the two artists, the contestant would know to eliminate that option.
The benefit becomes more apparent in a category with a limited number of possible responses -- for example, a category in which all the answers are continents. Or a category that aired a little under a month ago in which the contestants had to identify the silent vowel in a word -- if the category had been played top to bottom, the fourth-row clue probably wouldn't have been a stand-and-stare.
There are also benefits for the home audience, and not just the more satisfying feeling of material gradually increasing in difficulty as the round progresses. For the categories in which the writers attempt a clever-but-convoluted manner of presenting all five clues, it's no fun when a contestant starts with the second-hardest clue, none of the contestants understand what's going on, and the host has to explain what the contestants were expected to do after no one rings in. Better to have all that happen during the clue with the lowest stakes... or maybe that first clue is easy enough that the gimmick is more evident, demonstrating to everybody how the category works. (This is also the case for categories in which the host explains at the top of the round what the contestants will have to do, the category isn't selected until the round is halfway over, and everybody has forgotten that they need to, say, respond with the name of the movie character.)
It doesn't help with every category, or even a majority of categories (however, note how useful it was in the "P"s & "Q"s category in the linked episode), but when it goes wrong, it's rough to watch.
