Wink's TTD was a must-watch for me growing up because of the possibility that games could go on forever and there was the possibility of a "super champion." Looking at it now, are the questions on the easy side? Yes. But this was, to me, a precursor to modern J! -- a show where a champion can win 10, 20, 30 times and garner tons of attention.
Back to J! for a minute -- it's not that I want every contestant to pick clues top to bottom. It's more that modern contestants are the human equivalent of lemmings. If one contestant "Forrest bounces" and hunts for Daily Doubles, then everybody does it. Several years back, we had a situation where every contestant seemed to be playing for ties, calculating Daily Double bets and Final J! wagers to maximize the chance that a tie could happen, etc. Eventually, the show brought in tie-breaker questions to end this strategy. Today's show strategy seems to be "do what that other contestant did."
JD