I'd keep the mid season int weekend, adds much greater focus to the international scene and gives a bit of a rest from the grind of club football. The test matches featuring the island nations could count towards the pacific cup which can be completed in oct/nov with the rest of the games in the island nations.
If we want to treat international rugby league seriously then fund it as a proper comp that's played uninterrupted at the end of the year rather than cramming it and breaking it up into the NRL season.
Doc, where in southern Queensland would you host a game?
Split the state into two zones (effectively split Central Queensland effectively) and have multiple locations in each that can support a 10-15k crowd (the NRL should subsidize the seating costs) and then rotate it so they get a match every 4-5 years (so they're not overkilled). These are the smaller areas. Bigger areas like Cairns, Sunshine Coast etc we should be looking at playing at NRL games there every year.
I don't agree with playing all those games in one round. I think they should be spread over the season so there are multiple opportunities to blow the country game trumpet. As well I think we really need to ensure that area's like Sydney have a game in town every weekend.
It's a marketing tool so that the 6 games (Southern NSW, Western NSW, Northern NSW, Southern QLD, Northern QLD, NZ outside Auckland & Wellington) can be marketed collectively.
Obviously there can (& should be) other games in places outside of that round. By split them up into those 6 zones you can ensure that you don't have to two country games that are too close to each other.
