I agree with your comment regarding the starter/closer. I still believe that each team needs to carry 8 pitchers into a tournament and no starting pitcher should have to pitch in multiple games during the tournament. LL games go 6 innings but have kids on weekly pitch limits. Pitchers' parents could force SB to make that change for their own DDs' longterm health. They won't.....unless influenced by pitching coaches and managers.
Interesting point of view. I am not qualified to discuss the mechanical differences between pitching of a baseball and pitching of a softball. If an expert, like Dr. Andrews ever did publish an article that said there is no difference between softball pitching and baseball pitching for developing arms, the entire softball industry would need to change. The current situation, with teams having one or two primary pitchers and perhaps another emergency pitcher, especially at the younger ages, may be a strong factor in holding the sport back. Here's why: when a young player moves to a "travel" team, she often ends up playing the position where she can earn the most playing time on that particular team. So an 11 year old who can play multiple position including pitcher will likely drop pitching if she is not one of the top two pitchers on that team. This process actually lessens the pool of pitchers being trained and getting experience for the sport. When you restrict the pool of participants in arguably the most important position on the field, and do this before the players have reached their physical maturity, you hurt the sport. We don't do this with the boys. It is quite common for baseball players to play a position and also pitch. Part of this is because each team needs to have 6 or more pitchers on the roster in order to play a few games each week.
For some reason, softball seems always to be in a rush to push the girls into a single position and the sport seems to go through a weaning process much too early. Softball is not generally kind to late bloomers. We need more pitching and more pitchers, not less.
Just my thoughts.