I think TKONY2014 was either round robin or Swiss for similar reasons.
TKONY was just a round robin. Swiss takes the winners of round robin pools and places them into a double elim bracket to determine a winner.
I personally like the swiss format better because players get to play more matches instead of just going 0-2, but ultimately it will depend on how much time and resources you have available for the format you decide to go with. Round robins are better for determining the overall best player, however in the later stages you get pointless matches once you get to a point where you clearly know who the #1 player is.
As for Xian, don't blame him, blame the format and Capcom for making Gen trash in Ultra. Now people tight because he didn't beat Gackt who he plays with often and would know his tendencies 3-0 just so Poongko could get 3rd place instead of 4th? Ha.
I went back and watched the match. If he wanted to intentionally throw the match, he could have picked DeeJay or some shit. Instead he went with Zangief. Once he lost that first match, he probably lost the motivation to play because there's nothing for him to play for at that point since he's already in 2nd place.
Plus where's his history of collusion? I don't see the history to suggest that he would compared to other teams who have a long history of it, and even benefited from it in this pro tour. Plus he needed all the help that he could to stop Daigo from murdering him in the finals, so why give him even more help by letting him watch another set with your main to gather more data from?
Anyway, I got the result that I wanted and I'm sure that everyone else wants which is Daigo in the CPT finals, so why ruin that trying to grasp for drama?