Rethinking IRV, PR, Range Voting, Election Reforms

My interest in FairVote.org has become more mixed.  I like the idea of Proportional Representation, and have proposed an idea for it recently.  I'm less sure about Instant Run-off Voting (IRV) because I'm not sure it will be as effective as Range Voting at defeating Duverger's Law, but I think even the gesture of IRV might increase the visibility of other political parties. (But I think we might be able to do better.)

Some of the other FairVote reforms, I don't like so much.  First of all, I think the 26th Amendment is not a good thing for several reasons.  One is that it takes power away from the States to decide when their youth are entitled to be part of the decision-making, and rather unnecessarily.  The rationale, I believe, was that those young enough to give their lives were young enough to elect the Commander-in-Chief.  (Young women got this benefit for free, since they were never subject to draft -- and feminism was nary so critical of this.)  This was all right as far as it goes.  I would be all for an Amendment that guarantees the right to vote for those serving or having served in the military.  I would be all for there being a separate vote in the Electoral College for those in military service (makes sense to me) and a legal guarantee that their votes will all be counted.  (Did Al Gore do the same thing?)  I think the general effect of the 26th Amendment is that it adds to the pool of votes those more likely to make decisions based on what they were told about history rather than what they've experienced of history.

Plus, the "old enough to die for their country" argument has, I think, a bit of an insidious implication: that somehow youth are being sacrificed by the older people.  We are generally talking about their parents voting for the Congress that declares war (or in the 21st century, the President that unilaterally declares war).  For most youth (hopefully, still) there are two eligible voters that have a vested interest in them not dying.