The lottery is definitely more equal footing for chance to get a house. The old way only promoted botting to constantly click on the placard and hope it gets the timing perfect to get it....and not lose all their money to the new homeowner who put a retainer there for them to buy overpriced trash from.

Sure, there were bugs with it, and could have probably had more testing done using all scenarios(ranging from 1 person entering to 100 people entering, on random plots), but overall I think it's an improvement that can only be outdone by instanced housing.