I think the targeting of the stronger players early in the game is a product of too much scheming. Everyone is trying to figure out who they will be with in the Final 3 or 4 and not thinking about who you need to get you that far. I am surprised at this considering we have nothing but real students of the game on the show this time around.
Voting of Mikey B, Joel, and attempts to vote off Ozzy are foolish. A team's #1 goal in the game early on must be to have more players at the merge than the other team. Nothing else matters as much as that when it comes to making it late into the game. So, your first priority must be to keep your strongest players around.
What's more, if you are one of the middle or weaker players, you want the strong folks around because they are the ones who get picked off first after the merge if your tribe is at a disadvantage. Ozzy took out Joel but that has only served to make Ozzy the guy with the target on his back. Dumb, dumb, dumb! The idea position is to be the 3rd of 4th strongest person on your team. The last thing you want to do in the early stages is to take out the strongest guys and move yourself up the totem poll.
--Jason "more later... love my Survivor!" Evans