M7 is 7men squads but only 5 on the field at one time
D'oh! Of course it is, it's M7,my bad. Each team is allowed nine players on their rosters but can only play seven per game--and, llike you say--have five on the field.
Don't know what I was thinking.
I still think a center flag is the way--combined with buttons n' buzzers--to focus the attention, visually indicate the status of the game (no pull, pulled and in transit, slammed against the button to finish the round) and to put special attention on the flag carrier rather than just any player who can slam the button.
In some of the M7 games I've seen, the buzzer totally surprised me because there was still mopping up going on somewhere else on the field.
I say keep the center flag just like regular X Ball and add buttons to each end connected to the scoreboard accompanied by bells, whistles, lights, horns and/or smoke and fireworks.
For the gun thing again: cap everything at 10 bps--a good compromise between the mechanical 'Mags of the day (7-8bps?) and the current slightly too fast rate. Millennium also has a better ramping mode: you have to activate your trigger at a ROF of 7.5bps before the gun starts adding shots. You also have to maintain that rate of trigger activation to keep the doubling effect of 15bps. Since it doubles rather than triples like PSP, only one shot is discharged after the last activation.
This is a somewhat safer mode and also rewards trigger skills a lot more.
Don't know what the mode should look like for 10bps.