I'm as excited for regular conquest battles to return as you are, but this race-to-place, in the current format, will take up the first third of every conquest month. It'll stop, yeah, but it will be back again after the next truce period. It is a new equally-important part of Balak Conquest and deserves scrutiny.
I think this is a really valid and important point, and if you will indulge my somewhat off topic (and quite long, sorry!) response I'd like to elaborate to something bigger. I've remain pretty undecided about the whole new marathon races to territories in addition to the KOD change. That being said, I think your point makes me realize that, as much fun as I think it is, I'm not so sure I
want to be continually doing this every first week or so of the month - and I don't think people
should feel or be forced to do that. This is simply because, it seems logical that mobilizing in the opening days of Balak is perhaps necessary to give yourself the best possible position to win Balak at the end of the month. The overall question becomes less about the KOD change and more about the place of the marathon fights as a whole. It's a week long (at least) period of daily "ganking" and racing to get to the best position possible.
Bear in mind that conceivably this situation arises out of the simple fact that
there are only two sides fighting on Balak. I don't think the issue stops with making Balak KOD. I do think, however, that it's feasible to satisfy both parts of the problem: First, that whomever can pearl the best gets to place first. Second, there being a lack of fighting over who can actually set the inhibitor. I've heard discussion,
from Cryptite, about the idea of making inhibitor set ups the equivalent of how VOTA pads work. If this were to be implemented it would mean two things, I believe: First, whomever gets there first
will not necessarily be the one that gets the tile. Second, the time it takes to physically set up the inhibitor allows for enemies to contest and fight and potentially revert the inhibitor to neutral and then set their own. Moreover, it seems fair to be able to then compromise to the more unstated wants of players, who hate losing gear and/or still want to be able to collect gear, by having the KOD begin once someone starts to set the inhibitor. This doesn't resolve the whole issue, though, as there is obviously still going to be a mad dash to get to the location to support your teammates. Though, as I think some of us have seen, there tends to be limited fighting during the majority part of these sprints, as people begin fighting closer to the inhibitor pads. I see this as more of a compromise between the nature of Balak, as being intended specifically for Conquest as well as the popular "gank fights."
All of this is to say that perhaps this specific change is coming too soon and it's worth evaluating the bigger situation as a whole, before taking this action. Of course, it's also possible that I've wasted a few moments of your time by rambling on about something completely absurd and irrelevant (Hopefully not!). That potential miscalculation aside, I'm sure my response doesn't addresses all of the issues I have been hearing let alone my own distaste for wanting to have to daily fights like this (every month), but I think that's mostly because I'm just not very good at PvP.
tl;dr: Perhaps VOTA inhibitor pads might be a better change and more rewarding experience, than simply making Balak KOD. 
