>> So as you get nearer to the end you can do more dibs
I agree strongly. In many swaps, the most-desired things will be picked in the first few days. In a 30-day swap, I might set a limit like "5" for the first week, "10" for the second week, and "no limit" after that.
I would let the host pick the daily limit. Maybe suggest something based on your formulas.
However, just because one swap has 100 offerings and another has 10,000 offerings, doesn't necessarily mean there are more "desirable" or "competed-for" offers in the big swap.
In fact, very discerning and picky traders might gravitate toward tiny swaps where just a few people offer just a few things - RARE or specialized things. They are the ones that need careful throttling to give everyone a fair chance.
Hence my suggestion that the host may over-ride the suggested daily limit, and specify how fast the limits ramp down. If that gets complex, it could even be just an on-off option: limit requests to N per day for the first D days, then no daily limits.
Also:
It will be very time-consuming to find our "most wanted" 5 things out of 1,000 offerings, hence I wish we could flag or prioritize ALL our "must-haves" in one or two passes, even if we have to go back later and formally request them in priority order, a few at a time, once per day, for the next 10-20 days.
I think that, as things are now, we would have to keep a manual list on paper or in some offline doc format, of each "must have" that we discover each day after reaching that day's daily limit.
