I was thinking about something earlier:
Does anybody else think that the season was originally planned to merge at 12 not 11 ( like most recent seasons) but due to Dana's injury, they didn't want to waste a whole episode on just that injury and didn't want to waste all the pre-merge challenges, so they stuck to the original format and had two more pre-merge boots.
(and maybe the jury was originall supposed to consist on nine people but they cut it down to not have pre-merge people)
IDK, just my two cents worth. I was bored earlier.