Really this is just two different approaches. You see Avoids as "all or nothing." Give me weekends off, period. If you are senior enough to do that, it works great. However, if I am a more junior guy I might be thrilled just to get one or two weekends off. What happens if all of your bid groups fail that lock out weekends in the supply pool? You may not get ANY weekends off, period. What I am proposing is eventually putting weekends into play in later bid groups, but placing all weekend trips in L--. That way the system at least attempts to minimize any weekend flying that it gives you. You don't want the system to look at a later bid group and think "well, he's expanding the trip pool and did not lock out weekends in this bid group, and he apparently does not care now if he flies on a weekend of weekday." Why not tell the system that weekends still matter to you by placing them in the L-- pool, instead of the same pool as the rest of the flying you could be lined up for?

By all means, use the H pools too if you want. I would reserve them for individual trips on specific days. If you don't get any or enough of those trips from the H pools, then the system goes through the lower pools (L-- last of course) that you have set up the way you want.