I wonder whether this very complicated ranking and start list system is due to the PTO/T100’s partnership with World Tri? Having an “official” world championship designation for the series came with a cost of more bureaucracy. Same thing initially happened with supertri when the arena games got an official world e-champs designation whereas their regular series is pretty much a closed league and they’re free to contract anyone they want.
Then again, PTO/T100 probably thought that with the money they’re paying plus the prize money, all the contracted athletes wouldn’t be skipping races and hence there wasn’t initially a need for a complicated set of rules for wildcards.