After a bit of digestion of these, I like them (at least in theory).
In the "old" system, there was a lot that was out of the referees control in terms of getting a "good" mark. To unlock the higher scores, the match had to be challenging and little or no credit was given to the referee who managed to keep a lid on the game through having excellent match control. The old 5-4 was not dissimilar to the 4 observations and I've lost count of the times I've heard L4's being observed after a good solid first half, talking about how they "need to find a caution or two" in the second half to get a good mark. That for me drives the wrong type of behaviour from the referee, they end up looking to find things to appease the scoring system, rather than having an excellent game.
The second thing that I'll be interested to see how it pans out, is that under the old system the marks tend to be very compressed within a small range (in the 70's), so a referee that's had an exceptional game is often only scoring a few more marks than one who's had an ok one. It also means that you could have 4 good observations and then have one where the observer believes you should have cautioned for an offence that you chose to manage take your mark down to a point where you become marginal for promotion. I'm hoping that there will be a wider range of marks (50's for a game where a referee was poor, through to mid/high 80's for one where the referee has had an exception game) and we're not simply seeing a marking range of 66-74 for all performances.
I also like, assuming I've read
@RustyRef post right, that you are getting a mark for each competency under the heading topics, so you may get a 4 for recognising and penalising fouls correctly and consistently, but a 2 for issuing the correct sanction, as opposed to "you missed a caution so that's your AoL score completely in the toilet"
As an example, game I had on Saturday, I walked away from it thinking "Thank **** I wasn't being observed," not because my performance was poor, far from it, on honest self reflection I felt that it was the one of the most complete performances that I've ever had as a referee. I stamped out any form of dissent early without having to resort to cards, I managed a couple of other incidents early very strongly which left the players in no doubt that I was in charge, my positioning was excellent to identify the 2 KMI's in the game, including the award of a penalty that was right on the edge of the area. I ended up with no cards, both managers telling me I had an outstanding game, 22 handshakes from players and a number of spectators telling me I'd had a superb game as well. Under the old system, I genuinely think I'd have struggled to get an good mark, but under the new system, I'd hope that the mark would be a fairer reflection of my performance.
I guess we'll have to wait and see, and I'll find out personally once I've passed the fitness test!