To this day I haven't seen a claimer class that survived long, not that I'm against them. If they would stick to their guns it would be one of the best things for karting or about any form of motorsports. But, as anyone as said, once Tech is established prices sky rocket. The clone was in an opportunistic place in time with the downfall of the flathead and everyone claiming the Animal was too expensive. The clone could have been the savior, but now is essentially what the Animal was, but I digress. Endless cycle.
This comes down to someone wanting to "go faster" than the claimer class allows, because as someone said they're class fillers and think it's the engine. So instead of following the natural progression to the clone, they say that is too expensive. They want to be in that middle ground, "just allow this and nothing else." Then we'll still be affordable but we'll go "Faster." Now fracturing the rules and kart counts, it's the endless karting cycle. This repeats in history constantly. Everyone thinks they have the answer and that's why you have two different rule sets even for the same engine for the what is essentially the same class. Then an unknown amount of rules for Predators all over the country.
As the argument about speed earlier was going I had some thoughts to share. Fast or speed is relative, sometimes you can drop overall total MPH and actually get faster lap times. So what is faster? Again, it's relative. When thousandths of a second can separate good drivers I can understand where looking for some small areas to improve the engine. But, most of the time the people looking for this speed are the "class fillers." You'll never get it through their head that it's not the engine that is making them slower.
What all this means is that it will always feed this never ending cycle. If people would stick to their guns, keep claimer rules and force those wanting more "speed" to move into the classes that are already established. Instead of catering to everyone just give them their own class. There are already too many weight options, we don't need essentially 20 classes of the same engine, and that's what it is and will always be till someone unifies under one national rule system and the tracks grow a backbone. I've never raced road course, but that is one thing I can say about those guys for the most part. They have rules and if you don't like them, you either follow them or go home.
PS, about the speed conversation. The Power to weight ratio makes the acceleration of a UAS/RWYB style kart appealing to most. It's not exactly the top speed, though we all want to "go faster." As mentioned above MPH isn't always the answer unless you can increase mph all the way around the track, not just top speed.