The recommendation against the CTBT in the 2010 topic paper was related to likelihood of passage given the nuclear topic, not concerns about the ability of the CTBT to sustain a year. Some viewed the treaties proposal as even more appealing if the CTBT were included. I am sure programs vary in their opinions about "recycling" - some object to bringing back a mechanism from nearly a decade ago, while others are happy to run a "slightly modified" version of the arguments they read in the previous year. The level of debater turnover is surely over 25% per year (the number of 1-2 year competitors being larger than the number of 5th years) , so probably fewer than half of the debaters in 2011-12 will have even debated the nuclear topic.
That said, CTBT is distinct from common nuclear topic affs in a few ways: a very deep lit base particular to its mechanism, the legacy of Senate rejection in 1999, the size of the neg links (the purpose is to check development of next generation weapons), the unique implications of a multi-lateral mechanism, the relevance of the CTBTO and monitoring policy, the implications of resisting states beyond the USA for the treaty, and relations/domestic political consequences for nearly every nuclear or aspiring state. There were lots of nuclear topic cases that were smaller than the expected Obama revisions in the NPR process, which created much of the link uniqueness complexity. Even the big cases had decent uniqueness shields with the NPR in the front windshield instead of the read windshield.
That said, affirmatives will find uniqueness defense on most topics, so if that criteria is important to your primary concern, every topic should be scrutinized by the same standard. My primary concern is having large affirmatives with deep literature that can find good answers to common disads and counterplans. Having a wide range of possible advantages with a small number of predictable plans seems ideal to me. That said, this phrase of the process is more about what people WANT to debate; the next phase is about trying to make the resolution as good as it can be.
We have a LOT of great topic proposals, and our balloting process means that squads should consider every possible dyad of two topics to ask which they would prefer in order to make sure their rankings represent them well in runoff balloting. Any topic that has lots of #1 votes will stick around the runoffs for a few rounds, but the eventual topic will be the one that the majority ranked higher than the runner up.
If you would enjoy a year of debates that include it, rank it high; if you would hate that, rank it lower. If you think it would be better than some topics, but not your favorite topic, rank it in the middle.