[kasey_junk]

I actually think there are lots of trading schemes that could prevent speed being a major advantage, but discrete time auctions are not one. They just change who gets the time advantage. The only way to remove time advantage from the field would be to make it so that order time was not calculated in fill priority. There are markets that do this currently (pro-rata markets give larger orders priority over smaller ones regardless of order time). There are also markets that have tried randomized matching and other esoteric methods. Not many people liked trading this way so volume dried up.

If we really wanted to remove time priority, my favorite way would be to add near infinite price increments. Then if you wanted to pay for priority you could in an explicit way.

I'll buy that my hypothesis was overly broad. Let me rephrase it to, "The current system is way better than the previous system, and I've heard no systems that don't have obvious flaws as compared to the current system."

[logfromblammo]

It isn't just about time. If someone knows what you are willing to pay, they can engineer their trades such that you pay exactly that. When the system itself is not paid unless you pay less than you were willing to pay, there is a built in incentive to not reveal that information to potential middlemen.

In that context, trade speed doesn't matter. If arbitrageurs cannot profit by breaking your trade up into two trades with themselves as middleman, it doesn't matter how fast they are.

Aside from that, any system where trades can occur faster than information can enter your eyeball, process in the brain, and shoot down your arm to click a mouse button is one that unfairly disadvantages the unaugmented human participant.