Personally I think the number of teams in the next iteration should be no higher than 16.
And in terms of Mercs, look no further than the GameFAQs contests. If they're popular enough to be in them, then they're well known enough to be in Mercs. With a few notable exceptions anyway >_> Who knows how guys like Luke von Fabre (or whatever his name is) slip through.
--
"Eet's game time..."