By fewer applications, do you mean around 3K or fall below. Lets hope it stays at 3K level. By your logic of 2x, it means around 5-6K for the last 4 draws of the year (2 each for Nov & Dec). If that happens, the 400 lot will be cleared by Dec.Writing post after a long time.
Latest developments highlight that CIC want to take fewer applications till the end of October. This decision is taken to process FSW stream applications within 2 months and PNP applications within 4 months. Anyone who applied in July or onwards will benefit from this decision and hopefully, 80% of the applicants from July and August will receive PPR within this year.
The good news is that CIC will be able to deal with 2x more applications online by December which indicates their intentions to take scores lower than 400 in the first quarter of 2018.
I hope this will help. Good Luck to all.
Would love to know the source, but, for the time being i'm loving your 'Short term pain, Long term gain' theory.