As somebody who favors contraction but doesn't want to lose good owners who specialize in 24-team leagues, I have a couple of comments.
In the interest of full disclosure, I own a team in both 2000T1 and K-17.

I agree with regard to 2000-1 that this league can survive without contraction. The teams we have are pretty strong, and, while my team would stand to benefit from possible contraction, it would seem that any domino effect of owners changing leagues as a result of contraction in other leagues would probably bring in one or two more owners for "orphan" teams. The Karmas are a particularly strong team.

In K-17, the team I own (Osceola Owls) is probably the weakest. This team was weak when I acquired it and I picked it partly because a reallocation draft was rumored to be coming. While two of my other teams benefited from reallocaiton drafts, it never happened in K-17. I have built up several other teams, but have made some bad moves and some that looked good on paper but didn't pan out. (I have had few or no trades the commish questioned in this league, in contrast to having a fair number in a couple of other leagues.)

If reallocation doesn't take place in K-17, I will probably seek to drop the Owls and pick up a better team, in that league or another one.
The only exception would be if a couple of the orphan teams were picked up in K-17, it would open up more trades and give hope. If I see a chance to build a team, in even two years, then I would stay with any team because rebuilding is half the fun. However, K-17 seems to be a league where there aren't a lot of very active traders (only my perception). That strategy is fine, but it does exaggerate the effects of having unowned teams.

Finally, it appears there arent' resources to start and run launch leagues. As long as this is the case, we don't have the option of drawing new owners in, so it will be tough to revitalize the down leagues. If we could get some launch leagues going and draw in some new players (even by word of mouth), then neither of these leagues would really have to be contracted.\

Dave N