As for knockdowns, this thread isnt meant to be about them.... but Kreegan, play around with your knockdown triggers/strats. You'll be surprised how fast you can get back up, even with a non-HoL in full plate.
I do have a trigger for such situations actually, offensive, with 10 activity. It doesn't help one bit against anyone but the slowest gladiators.

Anyway, not meaning to hijack the thread. I believe most people are not against the idea for team fights in Blood Gods but are worried about the issues that might result from changing the format. Let's admit it, the late game has so many variables in it that it is very difficult to balance. 1:1 fights allows you to construct a strategy around 1 gladiator in an attempt to make it successful against the majority of the other gladiators in duels. This can take some time, even if you assume an already fully equipped gladiator, which takes a lot of time on its own. Adding additional fighters to the combat increases the complexity of the task further. The rock-scissor-paper mechanics that the combat system is largely based on mean that, depending on the combinations, you can have teams which completely dominate other teams, even if the gladiators who compose them can fare relatively well in duels and in other scenarios might be more successful or unsuccessful. Increasing the number of participants in each fight also lowers the value of each individual fighter and his tactical contribution. In the end you might have situations where all of your work to develop a good fighter is wasted because the matchups - teammates and opponents - are just not in your favour objectively. And people are used to their favourite pets and hate seeing them lose without being able to do anything about it.

This is hardly a must though. I generally like the idea about the segregation between the duels and the team fights (Blood Gods and Blood Games) and think that it can work out quite well. When I have the time, I can give some suggestions how to compose the team format, if you are interested. I suppose the other players can contribute as well. At the very least, we can give it a go for one season, see how it goes and if the flaws are too many and appear to be too hard to fix, I suppose you can always restore the old format.