Thanks for the comments guys :)
RoKKer-Of-The-RoKs :
That was the whole idea. By eliminating a background, and putting portraits all the way out to the edge of the screen upwards and to the sides, would allow for more characters on a single select page. Also making the portraits a little bit smaller to increase the numbers that could fit on the one select page as well.
I know some people would like to have a background on the select page, but I don't really see a need for there to be one really. Wouldn't using all that empty space to make for a better selection pad be a better option?

I hope Kintaro gets more special moves in the final build

lets hope the final select screen has noob and smoke seperate

was bored so i decide to add portraits to the image i put in earlier posts of this thread. check those for details/info etc.
http://www.lilwall.net/temp/ss-pics.png
they aren't in any particular order, i just kept going till i ran out of characters. didn't feel like scroungin up a pic of Taven, and as far as I know no pics of the new Motaro exist yet. There is a blank square there, i don't think i've missed anyone, so i dunno who would go there. i've intentionally left Meat, Chameleon and Kameleon off the board as they are not confirmed characters. even if they did make the game I have a feeling they' be secret characters and not shown on the main board anyway.
theres nothin serious about this pic, was just havin fun

I really don't like the idea of a rotating/flipping select screen. I would rather see a sliding bar for each player with all the characters or something like that.
Also what happens when 2 players are playing? one will have to choose first then the second?
@ snowcat - although your select screen looks good (very old school) i would like to see them try something different.

i dont want this but...
do u think they might use the DBZ BUDOKAI type select sreen?
with a circle or row of characters that rotate?

I dunno that I'd like a scrolling screen like that, I've always prefered to see all the characters at once. But I guess anything would be better than the rotating screens we've seen already. Mind you though, I have a feeling thats what we're going to be stuck with in the end.

I think the new select screen is awesome.Much, much better then the previous two with that half body showing crap lol.I hated that personally.
I like it how they have that awesome dessert background, it would be cool if they rotated the backgrounds in the game like they will with the main screen.

Once again I'm late to respond, but anyway...I feel that the way you posted is a very sensible way of organizing the characters. Afterall, isn't this Armageddon a war among the different groups of people? Why not have them in the same area with others of their kind? The only difference I would want would be to organize them by where they're from or what clan they're a part of. Rather than sticking Cyrax with Smoke, have Cyrax with Sonya, Jax, and Kenshi...and have Smoke somewhere with Noob Saibot and perhaps Sub-Zero and Frost.

I agree. They should have all the MK characters on one side.

Meh I was expecting a rotating sphere select screen think smaller variation of Marvel vs. Capcom 2's select screen so yeah I Giant sphere was my original hope but this one is good too