My spin on the time-manipulation:
Clockwork
~ Left click changes song rate to 1.5x as long as it is held, and point gain is increased by 1.5x. Only blocks obtained during the gain are affected; this prevents people from making large clusters, holding the clicker down before they disappear, and getting the bonus without going the distance and grabbing them during the speed-up.
~ Right click changes the song rate to 0.5x as long as it is held, and point gain is decreased to 0.5x. Same procedure as the speed up.
~ Alternatively, you could have it work with a timer, and the track speeds up / slows down for the duration of the timer. Actually, this is probably a better idea to prevent abuse.
~ No shoulder. This is necessary especially for speed up, because the player could just grab clusters and sit out in the shoulder until they clear. It would make slowdown more useful in traffic-dense songs, as well.
~ Ironmode changes speed up to 2x and slowdown to 0.75x, yet the point values remain the same.
~ There is no difference between Casual, Pro, and Elite other than the number of block colors on the track.
This idea could work very well if a point balance were created to suit it. Playing a song at 1.5x nearly the entire track should give you an extraordinary score, while playing at 0.5x gives a rather weak score. This is where you mix it up. Traffic-dense sections of the song? Slow it down and get reduced points for clearing the section. Easy sections or point-scoring sections? Speed it up and get the benefits from taking the challenging route. I'd imagine lots of players would be willing to try going for a whole track in 1.5x rate to obtain massive scores, and I'd hope to see some competition that isn't a bunch of Ninja Monos and Eraser Elites all over the place.
This is not a Mono spinoff; I feel a color track would suit this one far better due to strategy involved in using it.
Vegas Elite
~ No shoulder.
~ As opposed to staying the shoulder to gain shuffling time, the Vegas could simulate being overfilled (only without the point loss; just inability to grab blocks and stay in wireframe state) as the cooldown sequence commences. This could probably be mapped to left click.
~ Right click starts up a roulette of sorts, and during this time, you simulate overfill like before. A 3x3 (think Pokemon) slots machine shows up on the screen, and either right or left click will stop the roulette wheels one by one. Depending on what matches up on the screen, you can be awarded points, powerups, or even point loss penalites. It can only be performed once per ride, and the reward is given to be thrown out with the right mouse click, similar to Pointman. As a limit to prevent being used for an easy Clean Finish, impose a limit to the slot machine before it stops and gives a point penalty for taking too long.
This one is the ultimate in luck and gambling, like it should be. A good score would be composed of getting a good payout on the slot machine, and the rest of the points can be composed of grabbing anything you can get and shuffling it out in nice arrangements. It would be wise to keep from shuffling too much, or else you'll find yourself passing through too many blocks and missing out on tons of point opportunities. Anything to improve the competition in the Elite class is a plus right about now.
