I could not agree more. It should lead to more efficient use of resources and hopefully a lot less personal problems. I have seen many of my friends getting scooped during the PhD and every time I felt that this was so unnecessary. This has been my main driving force to promote the concept whenever I can. Some people have argued with me that competition keeps people productive but I think that can still compete on smaller packages of content that don't take 2/3 years of work from someone.