From Fallen London Wiki

Well, I think not dividing them into "role" is good - because you can make different team compositions. For example, you can have a team with two accomplices that generate a lot of prep and then a King that gets lots of progress, or you can go for three accomplices that generate progress right off the bat (I know early in the game I had success with a no-prep no-checks run, though that particular combo is no longer viable without Roots), or you can have a balanced team with a page/knight/king, etc. If they deliberately split them up into "DPS, prep, support" then they lose the various strategies.

In general, they've balanced it in a few ways:

First, even of you "lose", your EPA is the same. It's not really a big deal to draft a bad team and then go dammit, that didn't work. Second, the structure of the seasons is that you just need one win to get the medal. It's ok if it takes you a few tries, you've got a while.

I've personally found that even with the new restrictions, it's not particularly hard to put together a winning team; I've found that getting the various distinctions is pretty tough, but that seems normal and intended. So I enjoy it.