My proposed format requires 11 games (or 12-13 if a 3-game championship) is used. The format for a 12-team field used this season is 11 games.
If instead of going directly to quarterfinals, my format went to a 3rd round group of 8, followed by semifinals and a final it could be completed in 14 games. This is the same amount of games required by the current format, including repechage, and the format would be identical for that currently used for the final 12, except some of what are now 1st round games would be spread over two rounds.
In fact, a good way to visualize my format is to think of it as incorporating the repechage into the actual finals competition. Instead of 24 teams, split 16 and 8, with the 16 playing 3 games to determine the final field of 8; my format has 24 teams playing 5 games to determine the 12 teams that continue in action.
This first round is superior to the repechage because all teams face intercontinental competition in order to advance to the final 12 teams. While the repechage may have a slightly weaker field, finishing 1st out of 4 teams playing 3 games is more sensitive to unlucky draws or game results than finishing in the top 3 out of 6 playing 5 games. The determination of the final 12 is better, and from there on the two formats are equivalent and could be made identical.
Expanding the field could also make the continental championships more meaningful. In the 3 large continents, the continental semifinals determined which teams qualified for the World Championships. In most cases this meant a CT in semfinal that carried over into the final.
The inclusion of a full set of classification games should not be seen a providing more teams more games at the expense of identifying the best team. They do no such thing.
They do provide more teams more games, true. But they also provide a way to rank teams outside the very top. They should not form the basis for judging my format and could be discarded even though I think they are a good idea.
The case for classification games at the continental level is more compelling, since it provides a simple way to determine and rank an arbitrary number of qualifiers, and 2nd chance teams, and also gives even the smallest countries something more than 5 games and out.
When the current 12-team format was devised, there were 30 countries. There are now 80 with the number expanding. Over half (41/80) are in Europe. With a small finals field, it is harder to come up with fair continental qualification formats since it is harder to adjust the number of berths per continent. A 24 team permits more granular allocation of berths. It is not unreasonable to permit 30% (24 of 80) countries participate in the finals.