For me I think it depends on what you want from the league.
If you want the league to be as interesting as possible I feel you probably go for 6 team divisions, there aren't enough teams to support 8 team division.
If you're more interested in the league as a means to help develop hurling outside the traditional elite I feel it's better for there to be 8 team divisions.
My opinion is I think the development of the game should be prioritised. At the end of the day, the league even in its present guise isn't the priority for teams. It's all about preparing for championship. Who knows if we do open the game up more to developing counties we might find that more teams are competitive at the top level. In the 90s when we had 8 team divisions that was actually the case.
I'd like the leagues to be played concurrent to provincial championships.
The biggest obstacle to this is how to fit in club championship, I have a potential solution.
7 weeks are devoted to the league with 10 weeks for provincial championships also designated. The 10 championship weeks are split into 5 blocks of 2 weeks. If a county doesn't have a game in a championship fortnight they play club championship in their first break week. County players then return to their county panel and have 2 weeks to prepare for their next league game.
The schedule would look like this:
Week 1-3 league round 1-3 Week 4/5 Ulster and Leinster football prelims Week 6 league round 4 Week 7/8 Football and hurling quarter-finals Week 9 league round 5 Week 10/11 football and hurling quarter-finals Week 12 league round 6 Week 13/14 football and hurling semi-finals Week 15 league round 7 Week 16 hurling finals, AI hurling rd1 Week 17 football finals, AI football rd 1 Week 18 AI hurling rd2 Week 19 AI football rd2 Week 20 AI football Rd 3 Week 21 Hurling qf Week 22 football qf Week 23 hurling sf Week 24 football sf Week 25 hurling final Week 26 football final
6 months 3rd Sunday March (after club finals) to 2nd Sunday September
AI hurling: 16 teams split into 3 tiers
Tier A: 4 teams: Munster and Leinster champions, next best 2 from league. Tier B: 4 teams: Munster and Leinster finalist if not in tier A, next best teams from league. Tier C: 8 teams: Ulster champion if not in tier A or B plus next best, division 3 champion, rest of the placings based on league position.
Rd1 tier c plays off Rd2 tier b vs Rd 1 winners QF tier a vs Rd 2 winners
Football has a similar structure with 8 and 16 team tiers.