"just to make sure they have a thread up and no one else will take away their reservation."
This is what the reservation thread is for. Your reservations shouldn't be taken away for at least one-two months depending on the forum, which should give you enough time to write out a good skeleton to have critiqued for QC
Basically I'm trying to get rid of the threads that simply say "placeholder" in the OP and nothing else.
As long as you have a list of "possible sets" and have kinda fleshed out Overview, OO, and Checks and Counters, that's all I'm looking for. You don't necessarily HAVE to be ready for QC, but you should have something that gives QC a way to give input into your thread.