I wonder if they have everyone compete but somehow edit it to make it a best of 3 kind of thing. It certainly wouldn't be the first time, I recall that JLP publicly said they had to edit some of the footage from the Daisy vs Simon Black sudden death match on exile island where they had to stack those things because it went on for too long.
This is an interesting point. I think it was clear last season that they were a strong risk of having edited too much/in too unrepresentative a manner, so I’d be surprised if they’re risking that again this season.
With that said, it would explain a bit - I would have thought you almost always just play your best available player, possibly versus their expected opponent, and if you get down to the weaker players then so be it - your opponents should be down to their weaker players as well.
I did read recently that some tribal councils can go for over an hour. Personally I have no issue with editing of that type - it’s necessary and creates higher quality content on the episode itself - so long as it’s a faithful edit.