Yes, we have to come up with a more powerful 'pre-election' mechanic. Me being a reformist rather than a revolutionist I wanted to take the small step first and evaluate the outcome. I believe the outcome was positive and thus we have to take the next step.
Regarding the navel-gazing; sometimes it is necessary to take a look at the foundation that is being worked from in order to move on. I think that making sure the CSM-system itself is working in a satisfactory manner is healthy for its long term effectiveness.

I've also been thinking about the following scenario:
Hold regular elections for CSM8, using current voting mechanics.
Make that dictate the results.
On the side run an experiment on a new voting system and see the results from that using the voting data from CSM8 election.
Investigate and spit-shine and use new voting system for CSM9 if viable.

Just a thought in terms of a possible implementation strategy.

#1 - Platforms.

Absolutely - despite the dramas and the things EVE players create you guys are amazing (no homo).

It would require, I think, that we know somewhat who is running well before hand... or should we just use the current candidates and ask 'which of them would you vote again'?

This doesn't assume anything of the sort.
...
The system does the following ::

I agree. The problem isn't quite the weight that bloc candidates carry, it's the crapflood of non-bloc candidates who end up absorbing enough votes to keep some good people off the CSM (see Korvin) - forum likes are up to 3 per account and that is ~dumb~

The simple solution to this is to just run the regular election, with one vote per account, and the top X people are full candidates.

Could it be that high sec and null sec are just so different that they constitute two 'games' within EVE and therefore this differences arise?
So if I designed a political system based on premises that really only considers null sec, wouldn't that automatically leave high sec out, or at least make it more difficult for them to participate?

Your point was that the a Platform system would be parliamentary in nature and not just a sounding board. This has nothing to do with parliamentary elements. It has to do with getting the opinions that matter into the CSM.

If splash screen ads are to be allowed at all, let them be free of charge, limit each candidate to one and randomize the day they can have it posted. These should not become tools to give the wealthy an edge over candidates that want to run based on their experience, expertise, and character.

I assure you that we have scrutinized Trebor's single-transferable-vote system and have come up with a way to exploit it to hell and back to completely stack the csm with nullsec candidates.

As such, the "fair representation" goal should, IMHO, be a "fair representation of the different player subpopulations", which is not quite the same thing as a "fair representation of the electorate" in RL democratic terms. Ideally, CCP would like to have a CSM diverse enough in terms of interests such that no matter what topic is placed before the CSM, there will be at least 3-4 active CSM members with experience in that area.

Even this assumes that CCP wouldn't choose Mittens, or say Aryth, or corestwo, on the merits. After all, if you're playing (and occasionally, breaking) the game at that level, you probably have some insight that CCP would be interested in hearing.