I would have thought the WLS offers at least some positive benefits for small players.
You will never convince me that the big fish will place WLS-es on ALL good names on day 1. Just like right now, little guys with Snap/NameWinner/ExpireFish etc. sometimes manage to get first in line for a decent name, so it will be with WLS.
Here's the one great thing about WLS over the current system, though: if I wake up one morning and decide to take a gamble on a great name that's going to expire 8 months from now, my chances will rapidly approach zero under the current system as bigger players come in and corner all the angles to try and get hold of it.
However, with WLS there are no other players in the picture: if I have the WLS slot on that name, and it drops, it's automatically mine!
At e.g. $40 a pop for WLS subscriptions, the system represents a significant saving over the current system if e.g. only 10% of "bets" on decent names work out... After all, the bids on NameWinner go MUCH higher than $400 for any decent names!
In other words, if you treat WLS slots in aggregate and your average cost per successfully "grabbed" good name remains in the 3-figure range (i.e. much less than you could have bought the name directly for, and much less than the NameWinner bid would have been in the current system) then it's actually a winning situation.
There are plenty of downsides as well, and I'm not in favour of giving any more power to the incompetent folk at Verisign, but I'm just trying to present both sides of a picture that we will most likely have to face, whether we like it or not...