Well, only three more chances now (in terms of a chance at crowning a millionaire).
The $1,000,000 gimmick for a week is fair enough (and a business decision). That I agree. As mentioned, spreading out everything in terms of paying tribute to this season is smart. If they had made the first episode the best ever, then the rest of the week may have been a downer. Plus, if they made the entire week super special, it could cause for a sub-par season. Just my opinion.
The only way someone might go for the Million in PTR is if the values stayed the same as they normally would, and then instead of winning $100,000, they'd win $1,000,000. A second way would be to go for the million with 100K fully guaranteed.
As mentioned, the premieres being rerun in the Barker era didn't really happen. Don't recall it being the case in Bob's last 16 seasons. IIRC, in Season 22, when it was pre-empted, that was too bad. Had to wait for a decade or two to see it for the first time. Season 27 suffered the same fate, except it didn't. The premiere date in 1998 was affected, so they move the premiere back to Tuesday, with the scheduled Tuesday episode airing at the end of the year