Montoya wasn't too far behind Stephane Walker at Europeans, so he (or Raya) might have still snuck in to earn that 2nd berth.
On the other hand, Galustyan would have likely earned a berth at Nebelhorn.
I think for men and ladies, where there are relatively more berths, the effect won't be as huge, but it will provide greater motivation for the lower ranked skaters to prove they are ready for the Olympics.
The bigger effect will be for pairs, where there are so few berths to begin with, that spreading the wealth among countries for initial qualification will be a net positive. I also thought it was an interesting point, that in this way, there would have been three additional countries eligible for the judges draw at the Olympics, increasing the pool of possible judges.
I'm surprised so many of the delegates had trouble following this, I thought Lakernik and Bianchetti explained it quite well - and like you, my first thought was wow Australia would have benefited big time from this rule for 2018. If I've done the calculations right, this rule would have seen us qualify three disciplines at Worlds, instead of just 1.
And then maybe if this was the situation we wouldn't have had so many people whining about US pairs, as Cain/Le Duc's 7th at Nebelhorn would likely have been enough to confirm a second spot. And as this setup means smaller country pairs picking up spots at Worlds as well, it's less inherently unfair than the suggestion some US fans came up with to just allow US to win an extra spot at Nebelhorn anyway.
And what do you think about the fact that Australia would probably have qualified for the Team event instead of Israel? Considering the fact that T/T weren't eligible for Ice Dance at the Olympics, the team they sent to the Olympics was much weaker than Australia's. And A/W season would have been much less stressful, letting them focus on the JGP, instead of having to squeeze in a trip to Oberstdorf.