With the exception of Alesha, couples in the B2 rarely won; Well last year, it changed with Abbey winning because she was in the b2 in week 6 and still managed to win ; Same thing with Caroline this year....

Apparently Simon (according to some of the bookies ) was 2nd in the race . That is just a guess.....that AT made him moved ahead of Frankie. He was in the bottom 2 3 TIMES THOUGH .

So is it fair to say that the bottom 2 doesn't really matter anymore in the long run ?

Well it made a difference to Pixie and Jake. The judges were right to keep saving Simon though, seems the judges know more than all those dance experts on here

An early bottom two appearance can definitely be recovered from.

I think the problem is the dance off. When you can reasonably expect the judges to save the couples near the top of the leader board there really isn't very much point voting for them. With the old system of just combining the points there was a chance any couple could go home so people were more inclined to vote for those higher up the board then they are now. This leads to contenders slipping into the bottom two even though they might actually be fairly popular with the viewers.

Natasha in series one was also in the bottom 2 although pre-dance off.