In a weird way, despite your belief that a challenge game can run with fewer players, I'm not so sure. In an exchange, you have to write one of the prompts you are given; and, if you aren't inspired, you do as best you may. In a challenge, if you don't fancy any of the prompts, you just don't write at all.

I've often seen pointers to prompt challenges, looked at long lists of suggestions, felt quite uninspired, and simply not taken part.

(Mind you, they weren't FK.)

It is true that people default out of challenge games more often than they default out of exchange games, especially as both are played these days.

For myself, I'm not interested in "long lists of suggestions." That wouldn't be any fun. I'm interested in the old FKFic-L way of challenges, in which the game has just one (or, at most, three, in a bow to today's styles) prompts, and everyone writes the same prompt (or prompts). I thought that we could all nominate and elect a prompt (or prompts) together, and then it would be so fun to see the very different takes on the same prompt (or prompts). An N&N angle, an IB angle, "bright" and "dark" angles... everyone polishing up what she loves best in FK.

I'm vastly outvoted on the challenge idea, as always, so you needn't worry.

I'll do my best to promote the poll, but we can always skip a year if too few people want to play.

I've a nasty feeling, though, that, if one skips a year once, one will "skip years" forevermore.

In other words, when people get out of the habit of expecting to have the exchange at a particular time and place every year, they will simply drift off to other things.