In this way, each equipment manufacturer can decide on their product portofolio and the market can decide between performance and costs. I think we define even a better MAC when some freedom is given without loosing interoperability. Also different buffer scheduling mechanisms can be used. No special configuration should be mandatory. Equipment manufactures and network operators should decide.
Preemption is less complex than is claimed in all email-responses.
Also preemption should in fact remain a degree of freedom. Nodes with and without preemption can perfectly exist in the same ring, if the ring input-part of each node can handle preempted packets so that preempted and preempting packets are received correctly. If we not agree that all ring-input parts must understand preemption, then at least the standard should allow that those nodes designed for preemption are conform to the standard. In that case, a preemptive node will not use the feature when the next node is not preemptive. Again equipment manufactures and network operators should be able to decide whether it will be necessary to have packet preemption or not.