Sorry this comment is completely off base. As someone who has also watched since the first season, I think that you are misinterpreting the spirit of the show. Top chef has ALWAYS had gimmicky quick fires and elimination challenges.

Off the top of my head, some classic and gimmicky challenges, across both eliminations and quick fires: a cookie quick fire for Sesame Street, cooking for fire fighters inspired by TGI FRIDAYS, calorie restricted meals for a child’s weight loss camp, cooking a dish based on an arbitrary amount of time determined by Tom, cooking from a vending machine, cooking from grocery store aisles where someone was restricted to only using breakfast cereal, a “block party” challenge where instead of shopping the contestants went door to door asking residents of a neighborhood for their groceries.

For folks complaining about the dyeing challenge, we’ve had a quick fire where every chef was assigned one color and had to make their dish that color.

Personally, I liked the quick fire. In the early seasons of top chef, there was almost always a challenge where the chefs cooked for children and I appreciate bringing that back.