But Team Mafia is unique in that the people on your "team" in an individual game are also your competitors in the tournament as a whole. The format doesn't work unless it forces everyone on a faction to work together and win. A system based on individual performance would skew the play toward showy behaviour like bussing, or lurking to avoid a nightkill as a VT. And also, do you really want whichever team signs up the four most reputable players first to win before it even begins?
Besides, why does Team Mafia need to be THE PINNACLE OF MAFIA ACHIEVEMENT and THE HIGHEST HONOUR ON MAFIASCUM? The Scummies are there to reward individual performance. Frankly, I'd predicted that with twenty teams and six games, whoever won Team Mafia would be whoever got lucky, not whoever played the best. No one player
*cough* who's not a vig *cough*
can singlehandedly carry a game, or control how every single member of the rest of his/her faction plays.