From how I interpret whats been set. Players will almost / will be 'engaged' together. But then it goes on to say after the set ... they can come together. Also if the referee's are going to check the binding, it will take time out. If they were going to do it, might as well start both front rows in an 'engaged' position and start from there.
As for the crouch-touch-set, that is going on now. Problem is there is to much inconsistency with the officials around the scrum area. The speed on the 'engaged' call, is a major issue, it differs between officials which does not help.
Two issue this will probably solve is binding and also making the front rows 'engage / hit' up. Quite a few international props are exposing the referee's lack of knowledge at the scrum by going straight down to win a penalty, effectively coning the referee.
Yeh, I know what you mean. Just for clarification, I'm not suggesting the ref goes around looking at all four binds in detail, but instead he takes care of the open side, while the blindside assistant ref checks the other. Doesn't need to be a long look, just a split second, which is still more than the ref currently has. Of course this still doesn't stop the weaker scrummaging prop from slipping his binding, but at least then it should be more obvious who's purposefully lost their bind, well in theory....
One thing this does not solve is teams going early, and this is where I think having both teams simply engage gently before pushing is allowed, like it used to be, would be of benefit. Still this is a step in that direction, which can only be a good thing imo.
I also agree with you regarding referee's lack of knowledge. One aspect I current;y find really annoying, is referee's not penalising sides for standing up under pressure. I know some prefer that in these circumstances the scrum is just allowed to continue, but this takes away from the stronger scrum. Ultimately, standing up is the same thing as collapsing in terms of relieving the pressure, so it should be penalised in the same way. Some ref's do this, others ignore it completely.
Go back to 2000-2001 time, scrums just worked. Proper shirts helped binding and the John O'Neill law interference hadn't taken place yet.
I think this is too simplistic a view of the scrum. It's easy to automatically criticise rule changes for the problems at scrum time, but imo it has occurred because there is more 'streetwise' play going on nowadays. If a prop loses the hit, they are prepared to take it down in order to get a re-set and hopefully get more parity the second time around. I'm sure Adam Jones has hinted to this in the past (not totally sure though), and he's not a weak scrummager. The law changes haven't helped to aleviate these issues, but they haven't contributed imo.