Still no answer, but hey it's ok. It won't be my season anyway 
Then I don't understand the question, sorry

Public replays are not that much work anyway, because they come from storing replays in the database. And that work needs to be done because Zak is probably fed up to comb through every submission, every month, to manually find the correct replays. 162 races, 20+ replays per race, Zak has gone through thousands of replays for us!
On the other end, I
am a newbie and I found starting on ZakStunts extremely difficult and unrewarding. Joining a team made it easier, but I was
really lucky to race with Renato and Friker, see their laps and learn their tricks. The normal level of frustration for newbies is much higher, and I am not surprised if people appear, race once and never again.
I have friends who loved Stunts and would enjoy a race, but ZakStunts is a
blind tool-assisted speed-run with monthly deadlines, not basic racing.
Speed-run is fun,
tool-assisted is inevitable (RH) but
blind is frustrating for most people. Remove blindness with public replays, and I believe more people would be interested.
After all, I have more fun on USC than ZakStunts for exactly this reason. I can look at a couple of CTG, AbuRaf or Duplode's laps and come up with my own decent replays, learn what can be done, where to look for shortcuts, etc. Without a team, in ZakStunts, I can only facepalm when the podium replays are published.
LTB: the current system is fine, working for ages. However, giving a point after 1 hour of leading... I don't really like it.
Do you think something like 6 or 12 hours would be better?
Special events: I think they can take place even besides the basic race. Maybe in the middle of the month, because it was proved that the activity is the lowest then.
I like what Akoss suggestes. Live races, suprise tracks, OWOOT, anything actually. Maybe we can take turns or book a month? E.g., I'll organise something for January, CTG for February, etc?