Okay, but the thing is, once they decided to play SDOIT, which you say you love, that pretty much locked in the entire rest of the set list. I would have loved a few substitutions here and there. But there really is very little room to have changed hardly ANYTHING in the set.
I guess this is directed at me, but it doesn't make much sense. Nothing in the first set is "locked in."
Yeah, it was locked in because of the pre-determined format of the show. They were featuring Octavarium AND going chronologically through their career. AND they had severe time constraints on that show (and were fined for going over as it was). Most of the Octavarium songs were locked in. But I'll go through your list.
1. Play Panic Attack instead of Root (they're almost exactly the same length).
I love Panic Attack, but there was no way this was going to happen. They were opening shows on the tour with Root. That was a lock. And given that they wanted to use the Octavarium album as a theme, there was no way they were going to open the show that got filmed with anything but the album opener.
2. Another Won can stay as being representative of the pre-WDADU period.
Yeah, that was a lock as well. They had few options for the Majesty period, and this was the best they could have chosen, IMO.
3. Swap out Afterlife for The Killing Hand or Only a Matter of Time (+1-3 minutes).
The time crunch is the problem. There is no way they could add longer songs unless they swapped in something shorter somewhere else in the show, and there weren't really many opportunities to do that. I'm with you that those are better songs. But no way they could do either of them.
4. Drop I Walk Beside You (that more than makes up for using a longer WDADU song, and there are already plenty of 8VA songs).
As with Root, this was a lock from Octavarium. It was the lead single. No way they aren't playing it on that tour.
5. Substitute Surrounded for UAGM (-1.5 minutes).
Yeah, this would work, since it was shorter. I'm not sure it buys them much though. That isn't really gaining much time, and IMO, it is a lesser song, so there isn't really incentive to do that. But yeah, it is a possibility that could have worked.
6. Substitute 6:00 or Lifting Shadows for Innocence Faded (6:00 is almost exactly the same length, and LSOAD is only about 30 seconds longer).
For my personal tastes, 6:00 would have been nice. But a LOT of people were happy with Innocence Faded, given that it hadn't really been played. See my prior comments about longer songs for LSOAD. Plus, I'm not feeling like they needed another softer, atmospheric song. They had enough of that.
7. Substitute Burning My Soul and Hell's Kitchen for Raise the Knife (-2 minutes).
They've never played that combo, so I'm not seeing it. They could have also saved time with Peruvian Skies, which WAS played on the tour. But understand that you are in a minority on wanting anything but RTK. Fans overall were REALLY glad they pulled that one out. But yes, I concede that they theoretically COULD HAVE saved time in the FII spot.
8. Substitute Fatal Tragedy for TSCO (or, since the I&W and FII substitutions save about 3.5 minutes, play Home or Finally Free).
I was starting to feel TSCO burnout by this time. But it's sort of a "hit," and the atmosphere fit the show well. And to make room for those other songs, again, time constraints.
Look, I'm not arguing that it wasn't technically possible to make some changes here and there. But given what they wanted to do, what songs they had rehearsed and prepared for the tour already, and the constraints they were under, they really didn't have much wiggle room. They had some. But not much. I was giddy when they played the last two parts of SDOIT at the show just before the NYC show, because I was SURE that that meant Six Degrees in its entirety. I'm really glad they did it. But doing that came at a price in terms of what else they could do with the set list. In an ideal world, they wouldn't have had to worry about time constraints and could have done a few things differently. But given what they had to work with, they had to pretty much rely on the shortest songs available in most spots. I can't really criticize.