Jay, I think the first motivation or plan for "you can't request more than have been requested FROM you" was to apply it at the END of the swap, mainly to filter out Greedy Seeders who intentionally offer little but request lots.
I think you're suggesting using that same policy of "request no more than requested" to increase fairness of access to the most popular seeds offered. Maybe that is a good idea, I would have to think about it.
If so, maybe there would be some place for a two-phase approach ... I'm just spit-balling here.
Say the first D days of some swaps were focused on fair access to the most-desired items.
The host could select whether or how strongly to go in this direction.
Low daily limits. Maybe reward those who get oinked firstest and fastest, since clearly they offered the tasty stuff.
After that first phase, focus the swap on convenience. Increase or remove the daily limit and fall back on total-number-of-requests as the main fairness criterion for the second phase.
Just an idea. The host could select a daily limit for the first D days, the daily limit AFTER Day D, and a value for "D".
I don't think that would be TOO complex for most hosts ... but I do love details.
Maybe Dave could give hosts a "host-startup Wizard". First pici a "flavor" of swap, and Dave would fill in each field automatically with representative values for that KIND of swap.
Then the host could edit those choices, after seeing what the typical format would be.
1. Small swap with tightly focused theme, for Collectors who know exactly what rare and unusual things they want, and just hope any are offered and they get a fair shot at getting that rare thing. They want what they want and not much else. Low daily limits that last through 90% of the swap.
2. Big generic swap with lots of fairly available stuff for lots of people. For example, "vegetables". Fairness still matters a little because things like pkt size and freshness still matter, and there is always something that "goes first" even if nothing is Collector-Level rare.
Medium daily limits that ramp down before the swap is 1/2 obver.
3. Bottom-of-the-barrel swaps, where nothing is too old and no ID is too vague. Cross-pollinated seeds fine.l Re-trades fine. Large daily limits that go away after the first week.
