Wilson - You're right in the sense that many negative comments are written. However, it's often the same faces that write them. Lets consider for a moment the amount of people who are WGT members... that would be a lot. Then look at the number of members who come to the main forum and moan about it... that would not be a lot.
Now, I'm not suggesting that everyone that hasn't come here to moan thinks the Clash is a wonderful idea, but merely that most people moan about things more than they praise them. For example, its a bit like Trip Advisor, most people who have a great holiday simply have a lovely time and go away thinking to themselves, "that was lovely" and get on with their lives quite happily. However, if you don't like something or something went wrong, you want to tell the whole world. That's just life I guess.
So in essence, the clash is flawed, very flawed in fact. But WGT won't be changing it any time soon so it's best to just accept its flawed concept and either choose to play or not play. The Georgian, Majestic Mountain, WGT Amigos, Quebec Bong Club etc etc choose to play in it, along with countless others. Some argue that if The Georgian stopped playing that it would force the hand of WGT to change it because it's a massive cash cow and the Georgian single handidly hand over millions of dollars to WGT everytime there is a Clash. This idea is flawed because if we didn't participate, others still would... maybe even more so because they might feel they have more of a chance of winning. Now there's a thought.
Anyway, whilst I do concede that the Clash is clearly a way for WGT to make money, I personally have no problem with that. WGT is a busniess. A business which has a great game which needs money to continue to opperate. Would I do things differently if I ran WGT, probably. Do I run WGT or have any ability to change what they do, No. So therefore I accept it for what it is and continue on my merry way.
Dan
(ps: I may have reared off on a tangent with that post but hey ho, I had a whiskey for lunch.ha)