Currently we have only a messy list of problems and ideas on how the layered cursors design/implementation might be fixed or improved. We should define a clear scope for the project based on this document (ticket for the scope doc: https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/WRITING-37560) . This scope should include the following parts:

• A list of problems we want to solve and/or goals we want to achieve with this rework
• Each item or goal should be prioritised

Since we have only 8 engineering weeks planned for research, implementation, and testing in the first stage of this project, we should carefully decide what should be included in the initial scope.

At the moment, my feeling is that we should either focus on fixing existing issues (e.g. https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/WT-17247  - but we should compile a complete list), or on preparing the current implementation and design for upcoming work such as the new step-up and step-down logic. However, this assumption may be wrong, and this trade-off should also be explicitly addressed in this ticket.

We should also update tickets for the next stages of this project (where it's possible):

• https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/WT-17440
• https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/WT-17441 
• https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/WT-17442