That seems more palatable.
It reduces the unfair advantage of picking gate 1. It minimises the harm of a bad draw & thus result in the heat then affecting you in the final.
I think this makes the finals more exciting races. Rather than one fave drawn good and one drawn bad they will likely be relatively close to each other.
I think it could work great for one row racing. As for two row racing it becomes a bit murky with preferring SR1 or SR2 compared to FR5 - FR8. Ladies In Red/Bondi Lockdown might be ok with FR6 but bristle at SR1, but Blitzern may have been the opposite. I think that would be the biggest 'barrier' of this idea.