I have no problem with rewarding activity and making tourneys with money that target that player base. However if you make one that favours that group over the other while at the same tying it to LoTS which is the exact opposite of the idea of playing just for fun and not try harding.
In my opinion LoTS should consist of 8 people that get invited based on tourney performance (previous LoTS and major tourney performance (Swkoll's Invitationals), badically just inviting the best players) 2-4 based on the results of ladder league tourneys, 4-6 based on qualifiers. This way you avoid people like Petric, Nexus, BH not caring about Qual. Tourneys and throwing games, forfeiting etc., you reward activity of ladder players who get 5 tourneys with money in a year and a spot in LoTS if they wish to participate. And you also get a Qualifier tourney/s that are more close and competitive cause people actually try to get in instead of just playing w/e to get the 4th spot.
On another note I am really amazed at this stance where people talk about eg. Me or Nexus as we would only win because of our BO's and spend insane amounts of time on them while that's absolute bullshit. Most of my BO's are generic ones where i optimize a bit the amount pegens so I don't stall or overflow. If I would have played 30+ hours of 1vs1 during the month I wouldn't need to spend more then few minutes or any at all on a BO for a map. In contrast when I come back after a 2 month break and I have only played around 10 games before the tourney ofc I will need to sandbox on maps like Ditch to get back the feel for macro and eco control.