I really like the idea of a blind points auction at each pick, with the highest bid on ANY player becoming that pick. However, the worry would be that the equalisation aspect is diluted if the struggling clubs can't access top end talent if they are subject to a bidding war.
Could there still be a reverse ladder draft order? For each pick auction, the club who 'owns' that pick gets the right to match any winning bid. You could even give them a 10% discount. If the club with priority declines, they hold priority for the next pick and so on. The same rules could then apply for a FS- if the kid is the winning bid at a certain pick, the club of the father gets the same rights as (and trumps) the pick holder.
That was my general idea. So there would be a blind auction for players, so Gil calls bidding for pick 1 to take place and every team has 2 minutes to submit the player they want and then the points they are willing to spend, and as soon as the 2 minutes have passed it comes on the screen who submitted the most points and who they selected, that player going pick 1.
Then onto pick 2, doing the same thing, and onto pick 3 and so fourth.
For F/S and Academy selections it is simple, say you go a few years ago and Geelong bid on pick 36 with 534 points for Errol Gulden. Now because Gulden is an Academy player Sydney then have a right to match the bid, so paying 534 points, the exact amount Geelong were willing to bid, and if they match they get Gulden, and if not, they don't.
To me that is a much better system as not only does it create many more ways a team can rebuild their list, but it also makes trading so much simpler as you don't have to worry about a club not having picks near the value of a player (like the Brisbane and Dunkley situation right now) and instead it is a straight points swap, so Brisbane and Bulldogs negotiating and deciding Dunkley is worth 1250 points or something like that.