The new formats sound great, and I am sure there will be a lot to be had out of them (sadly cannot make use of the fall critique, as I will be traveling right on that very day). Third Thursday though had a few winning elements. One was the prompt, which was always surprising and unusual and forced you to think out of the box in a pretty unique way (other challenges only have one word, so no real narrative). The second was the deadline - a fundamental element of getting things done (for me at least). And third, the fact that nearly half of the submissions were discussed in the forum during the weeks leading to third Thursday, with a lot of really useful critique and exchange on a common basis.
I am sad to see these things go - hopefully we can keep some of that going on in the forum in one way or other - the community here is one of the great aspects of SVS, which also makes it different from any other online offering out there.
With regard to prompts, BTW, I have bought a copy of the "Sparkbook" by Cedric Hohnstadt, which contains about 150 illustration prompts somewhat similar to the Third Thursday prompts...an alternative resource for making relevant portfolio pieces, if need be...