b4nnySeeing as there is no way to force people to play in and pay up for any division, sandbagging will always exist. Perhaps lowering Invite fees would have some impact, but almost certainly the best way to tackle it would be to increase the incentive to play in Invite instead. For example if you made more money than the winners of Open regardless of your placing in Invite, then you'd probably get many more of those people who are wasting their talents in lower divisions to tough it out in Invite. This would either take a complete restructuring of the prizes and fees for ESEA TF2 or a significant influx of cash. But of course, we are lucky to have the little prize money we already have so its kind of a pipe dream.
these are very good points. good post, b4nny.