KOS, here's my .02 on why I don't think 3-->2 tribes is so terrible for a good player.
With 3 tribes of 6, a good player will be an influential player within a majority group of at least 3. Let's say it goes to 2 tribes at 16. The most common scenario is that the tribes will be made up of a few players from each previous tribe, and is
very unlikely that a previous tribe will have majority numbers on a new tribe. To pull that off, a tribe would have to lose 0 or 1 players within the first 2 tribals, and then their whole team would have to end up together on the new tribe. Having all 5 or 6 of you on one tribe of 8 is very very unlikely, yes?
So the most likely scenario is that all 3 previous tribes will be in the minority once they go to 2 tribes, so the goal is for 2 previous tribes to ally. The better players are going to be much,
much more successful at this than worse players because they will carry the traits that also gave them the ability to be part of the major alliance in their original tribe: ability to persuade and influence, flexibility, challenge prowess (which this early in the game should still be viewed by the other players as an asset and not a threat), flexibility, etc.
IOW, if they do break to 2, it will still be early enough in the game that no good player should be at any significant disadvantage unless they are incredibly unlucky.
My prayer for this season: Skupin gets to final 4 and in a tie breaker vote, is forced to make fire to get into the final 3. Pretty sure this would be the most epic redemption moment in reality tv history.