Love your ideas Sue. Though I have some additions:

Add a week – original week. Either the contestants sing a song they have written or, if they don’t write, they find a song from a writer who has not made the charts yet. Only way we get a true representation of what the contestant will sing post Idol is to hear an original tune. The craptastic coronation song doesn’t count – the contestant’s don’t have a choice on that one.

Add a week – Idol week. Bring back the past year’s Idol winner as mentor. Who else can give input to the contestants post Idol then last year’s winner. Song choice could be Itunes top 40, or whatever. But not the Idol’s songs.

I actually liked Kara. She knows her stuff and was often the only one giving valid critique to the contestants. But put a muzzle on the judges – 90 seconds max or their mic goes out on them.

I love SYTYCD judging style – mixing in new judges every week while keeping a couple rejuvenates the judges I think.

Add time to performance night – at least 1/2 hour. Many fans thought the biggest Idol “crime” this year was the week where only 2 judges commented. I disagree. The biggest crime was the week prior that caused it – overtime where Adam’s Mad World performance (and Simon’s subsequent very rare standing O) was missed by millions of tivos. That absolutely cannot happen again.

Drop the save, or listen to the fans. The fans didn’t vote for Matt not once but twice. He didn’t make it past Idol week (the judges brought him over), and the fans voted him out only for the judges to use the save on him.

As for the final 2, go back to the Davids year. 3 songs. One an original, or retread. One picked by Clive (or some bigname). The 3rd song for the Davids year was the coronation “loser” – the Davids had to choose from the loser pile of coronation songs. Don’t do that obviously. So have the 3rd song being a contestant’s choice again. Having both finalists sing the coronation song is just dumb, and both record it no less?, even stranger. Only the winner gets the coronation song.

Keep the Idol trophy – I liked that touch. Hopefully past Idol winners get a trophy as well though.

Duets – hmmmm. I actually liked the duets – Adam and Allison at any rate. Mainly because it was different than the norm. I’d be fine with dropping the duets.

Change up the themes. Country theme – snore. Done every year. Birth year – really? Birth year? Drop it. ET had a better idea – year the contestant turned 16. Music taste is more “ingrained” by then (though it is ever changing obviously). Though Allison’s pick would have still been something on current radio.

Add a theme – club music. If the show is going to make someone like Adam sing country, then they should make someone like Danny sing club music with all its electronic tricks.

As for the finale results night, keep as is. This past year was easily the funnest Idol finale yet (and my pick for favorite season finale of any show), and my guy didn’t even win!

As for the judges:

Simon – fairly useless this year. He’s already checked out. I will be STUNNED if he returns once this contract is up.

Paula – being Paula. Sometimes coherent, sometimes not

Randy – lost in his standard phrases. He seemed to have retired the “you can sing the phone book” phrase this year, but he was stuck on trying to come up with a new phrase and half the time stumbled over his words. And very sad – first couple of seasons Randy was the one with the best critique.

Kara – wordy. But gave the most valid critique once she started ignoring the peanut gallery in the audience.