personally i don't really like the format/formula for selecting which country should join which group. Why??Because players that competed in last SC might have retired and no longer there. And now the squad is either 50% new or 100% brand new, with a bunch of very young players.
IMO, from the below list, the only countries that deserve to be in this year's SC are:
Korea, Denmark, Thailand, China and Indonesia. The rest are questionables: England (if not for their XD pairs), so is Sweden(no MS or WS in top 20) and Hong Kong(only for their MS and WS and MD) shouldn't be in it either
On the other hand, IMO, the other country(ies) that deserve to be in it are Malaysia and esp. up and coming Japan.
What they could do is select which countries have the most players ranked in the top 20 or 30 in the world in each categories(MS, WS, MD, WD, XD) and let those countries compete. I can't really rely on the current IBF rankings, it's kind of out of date..
Or perhaps they could add one more group to the mix, so there will be 12 countries which will compete-so it will be Group 1C which will consist of Malaysia, Japan, Germany and Singapore.
just my 2 cents..