Cathy,

The thinking behind the roll concept is that it would be similar in form to the existing canister dispensers.  I'm sure Clorox product development considered different dispenser concepts and settled on the cylinder for a reason vs. tissue box style vs. magically appearing in your hand (which would be a really cool idea  ).  I do think a cylinder would be easiest to manufacture as you can make smaller individual rolls from a larger parent roll, so why not stick to that?

I doubt it would take much in terms of changes to the manufacturing process since in stead of shoving the roll into a hard plastic cylinder you just put the roll into a plastic sack and heat seal it shut.  For overall refill design / packaging, I'm thinking what I see for the Brita cartridge refills.  Just a roll inside a thin plastic bag that you can tear open with your hands.  Put six into a small, recyclable cardboard box and viola, you have a product.