Alternative Competition Formats - Episode 1172

I am interested in alternative formats for chess competitions. And to the possible annoyance of the ACTJCL Development Squad, I sometimes try them out. Not all of them are good (some turn out to be quite horrible), and success of the Swiss format does discourage organisers from trying anything new.
One format that is new to me (but not new to millions of players) is the format I saw described in the Japanese Manga "Hikaru No Go". This is a comic concerning a teenager who is becoming a Go professional (the link will tell you more). In qualifying for the "Pro Test" they use the following method.
Players need to score 3 wins to move on to the next stage. Once you score three wins you stop playing for that round, and once you suffer three losses you go home. Players are paired randomly for each game and you can't play the same player twice (unless you must). So everyone gets at least 3 games (and 3 opponents).
Why this interests me is that it may serve as an alternative to a straight knockout, which has never taken off in chess. Played with a fast time limit (rapid 20m+10s) you could have 2 5 game sessions a day, meaning 4 sets of eliminations over a 2 day period. You could then have a final play off between the remaining players to determine the final prizes.
I can see advantages over a seeded knockout (which has too many obvious results), and a purely random one (top two players meet in rd 1), but whether this would be a popular alternative to current formats I'm not sure.