Matt,

I'm mainly arguing for ATs in pure classes or US Club Class (a significant portion of the reason they wanted to break from Sports class).

In the case of significant handicap range (or advanced to beginner pilots), absolutely, TATs and even one turn MATs are reasonbly tasks designed to provide a means for those classes to compete. Absolutely ATs would not work. Long MATs however could work.

In a perfect world remember we would all compete in the exact same gliders with exactly the same wingloading and equipment! This would isolate the pilot as the key variable.

Handicap classes are an effort to fix the problem of gliders of varying performance and therefore not ideal/perfect forms of competition. The more variables introduced into a competition (different gliders, complex tasks, complex rules) the less ideal the competition is.