I believe that having the Capts bid awarded the day before F/Os and S/Os took the place of the "negative airman" list.

Maybe I'm missing something here...But, unless you have an enormous amount of guys that you can't stand to fly with, you can just look at the few on your list, see what they held and adjust your bid accordingly.

The block display trick was really no more accurate than a practice bid. Well, maybe a bit more accurate. I don't think they have ever cancelled a monthly bid.