After watching the American and British versions of Millionaire one after the other earlier this week, I think the American people got the tweaked money ladder wrong. In England, after winning £50,000, the "free guess" question is £75,000, which makes lots of sense as the free guess is less than double. I think it would have made more sense to reduce the prize money at that same point: keep the tenth question at $32,000, then increase to $50,000, as opposed to risking $15,000 to win $9,000 plus Switch the Question.

Agreed. The counterpoint, however, is contestants reaching question 10 now guarantee themselves $25,000, which, although it's a nice sum of money to win, is a bit easier on the prize budget. Even though it seems not many people have been getting that far anyway, $7,000 here and there adds up.

But yes. In terms of the game, $32 to $50 is much better.

Do the Brits get a 4th lifeline for Tier 3? One line of thinking is that you get Switch the Question in exchange for some of the money.

Another line of thinking is that the producers want to encourage more people walking at 16,000.

No, they only get 50:50, Ask the Audience, and Phone a Friend.

Under the UK's new format, contestants only need to answer twelve questions to win the million pounds.

12 £1 Million
11 £500,000
10 £250,000
9 £150,000
8 £75,000
7 £50,000
6 £20,000
5 £10,000
4 £5,000
3 £2,000
2 £1,000
1 £500

The Aussie version of the show returned for a short time this past November, and it took a couple cues from our syndicated version: No more "fastest finger" round, and the Switch-the-Question lifeline comes into play once you reach $32,000. Their money tree is much the same as ours originally was, except they've added a 16th level. Would YOU risk $968,000 to win $5 million?

do i still get to see the question

Yup. On Millionaire, you ALWAYS get to look at the question, and you can decide to walk away at any time.

Then the obvious answer (as with pretty much any question on that tier) is: if I know the answer, sure. If I don't, no.