Yea, I noticed that too. They were very slow to roll out Eastgate, Demidov, Schwartz, etc. You don't see them until the very end and then they dominate the last couple episodes.
That was the November Nine era when (I think) they didn't know who was going to win while they were editing the early episodes, so it feels like their strategy that year was to go all-in on Chino to build him up as the "established pro" at the FT. I imagine that nine random no-names is not what they were aiming for when they devised the November Nine concept.
That said, even despite eventually getting some huge names at the FT in the November Nine era (Ivey, Mizrachi, Tran, Josephy), it's funny how many brutal close calls with great storylines narrowly missed out (Carlos, Bauman/Hille, Negreanu).
Anyway, I'm still working my way through 2009, even though they've moved onto 2010 this week. The huge number of episodes really becomes noticeable around 2008-2009, and it's simply a lot of content to get through.
I'll post some final thoughts on 2009 whenever I finally finish it.