I love this map, both because I was playing gauntlet in the arcade as a kid and because it's just a fun, fast map with a really unique four-quadrant narrow-connection layout. I think it's very well balanced, and that's supported by so many people complaining about Thyra, who is in fact awesome.
This board is an absolute delight. There are dozens of strategic options available that are nothing alike and yet perfectly balanced. No matter how many games you play on this one it never gets old.
I want to love this board. It is incredibly clever and a nice change from the typical eliminate-your-opponents approach.
The problem I've got is that gameplay seems fairly one-dimensional and frequently boils down to luck. One can usually pick up every quest item in two or three turns, rendering strategies relying on the pools fairly ineffective; most games seem to devolve into a blitz for quest items, followed by a waiting-period in which you find out if someone's blind luck will result in a successful sabotage.
For what it's worth, the elimination rule makes complete sense to me and I wouldn't change it. You might be able to make it slightly friendlier without affecting game-play by not having the characters revert to neutral.
I love this board, both the stripes and 3-player 8x8 variants. It's a clever idea and the strategic options are endless. Still, there is a little room for improvement. On the smaller board, the initial setup can be completely outcome determinative. On the larger board, the tweaks to starting units aren't quite there; many players seem to offer to surrender on the second turn. But once it gets going, it's an absolute joy to play.