One way to make this more accessible would be if the participants were selected based on time spent in Luceti. For instance, two volunteers with 4+ years in Luceti, two with 3-4 years, two 2-3 years, two with 1-2 years, two with six months to a year, and two new feathers. A group of twelve that cover a range of Luceti's spectrum. That way it's not biased towards oldbies. After all, even new people have a different perspective to things that's a bit valuable.

I think you probably need to elaborate by what you mean by unsavory methods. Is this something that happened to the enclosure visited? We know that some places are prone to getting poorly treated, like Kin'cora. Is it a situation like that?

It's all an interesting idea. Though, a bit tricky in execution, all in all. How would you suggest keeping the characters engaged throughout? Would there e any conflict?