I am not certain what the disconnect here is, or why there is a need to be so adversarial, but let's look at it this way..
CEVO is planning a TF2 league, but the crux is, the teams simply need to actively participate to show continued interest. Recall that CEVO has languished in obscurity for a number of years and the added expense to support a league (which is a lot more then most people can piece together honestly, especially if there are legitimate prize pots at play) is not insignificant.
So the poll is really there to check a basic commitment level of the teams, if they all go for the lowest, that's fine.
So from a business standpoint, the goal is probably around 40 teams if I recall from the reading, to set something up like ESEA would not be a single season commitment, but a fairly expensive thing to spend the time to develop, so the business decision at play is really to find out if the community is willing to commit to the league to warrant that expense. In business, it's called testing to see if you have a market worth pursuing. So the ball really is in the TF2 communities court from here on out (where it always has been to be honest).
Do you want to continue with ESEA and the status quo, or try something different. So finding out if the community only wants to spend 15 dollars is not a huge deal. I think people will figure out the intent of the poll just fine. What it CAN impact is the commitment of resources and the speed of the discussed Stats systems, demos and so forth.