Prior to the addition of DM, I've always thought giving the guy who finishes second a "1st master" trophy was silly. "Oh, you won the match, congrats" "No, actually I finished second" "But it says 1st master, is there a higher class" "No" "????"
I think some number of overall placement awards should be given out before getting in to classes. Maybe the top ten? I'm an SSP EX. Say I have a great day at a major, and the overall finish is DM,M,M,Me(EX),M,M,M,M,EX,EX,... I'd much rather have a 4th place overall trophy than a 1st expert.
The problem I have with giving out DM only at the two nationals with no participation requirement is how different the difficulty of achieving it is across divisions. There were only 12 shooters TOTAL in ESR. By comparison, in SSP, there were 21 Masters! Obviously Jerry is DM material, but say he went minor at chrono or something. Should the next guy at 70% of Jerry's score really be a DM? No offense intended toward said shooter, he's a local and I consider him a friend. I'd bet he'd say the same thing.