AYRT

They've changed those numbers, sure, but if the number of requests are higher than the number of nominations that's more along the lines of the inane "things need to be nominated by two people to make it into the tagset" idea they had for five seconds a few years ago before the outrage made them reconsider. Yuletide is a rare fandom exchange. Forcing people to request something they didn't nominate would, for many people, mean a) they don't sign up, b) they have sign ups with a "I don't really want this fandom but I had to add a sixth request" note (joy!), or c) bring out the socks.

It creates much more problems than it solves. Which isn't hard, because it solves precisely zero.

The contact unmatchables phase involves people being asked if they can add offers. So yes, sometimes people already need to offer more than the minimum number in order to be matchable.

And they do, and then everyone is matchable. I don't see what reducing nominations would change there, other than maybe reduce the number of unmatchables before assignments go out. Which was, what? Five this year? A real problem that needs to be addressed, clearly! /s