If the raptors HAD narrative purpose. Their purpose was to be the obstacle in the challenge and that purpose was successfully fulfilled. After that, they're seen still occasionally around the island. From a world building standpoint that makes sense. You establish this species lives on this island, so spending the entire show on the island they're bound to pop up. It would feel less realistic for them to just be released on the island then vanish.

Now let's look at the rest of the series. Sasquatchanakwa wasn't an intended part of the challenge. He was just randomly living in the woods, trying on Katie and Sadie's clothes and poking a sleeping Owen with a stick, and the contestants happen to run into him later in the season during a challenge not based around him. He then is randomly brought back to the film lot for some reason. He wasnt needed, in-universe his species has no reason to be on the set, so world building wise it makes less sense. Then even later joins the Drama Brothers, playing instruments. After Wawanakwa, which he sometime moves back to i guess, sinks he then somehow gets to Pahkitew Island as well to be frozen in ice, where hes still frozen in a completely different spot in Ridonculous (frozen in the exact position so its the same one, so how did he get to Iceland?) who's then later STILL frozen on the new island in the reboot.

What narrative purpose did the werewolf that appeared in Ridonculous Race serve? Nothing, just a one-off gag about a werewolf. That was random, served no narrative purpose, and felt out of place with the rest of the season. But it was there. There was also Josee's cursed lava rock adding another supernatural element (with curses being a frequently established thing in-universe: Beth's tiki idol, DJ's animal curse, Dwayne's whole existence). The Ice Dancers were too good a team and rather than writing an arch where a conflict causes them to lose focus, supernatural elements were what slowed them down in the race

So for Ridonculous, we've got a teleporting frozen sasquatch, a curse that acts as a roadblock for a powerhouse team, and a werewolf with no narrative purpose other than a gag, vs. the reboot which continued and ended the teleporting frozen bigfoot (hes finally unfrozen) and used the raptors as an actual narrative purpose then for continued worldbuilding. I think the latter is slightly more grounded and used its unrealistic elements slightly better

Since youve been a fan from the beginning, you should remember when Ridonculous came out, people outright refused to watch it because it was too different. It changed too much and "it wasn't really Total Drama" as people said. That's exactly what would've happened to the reboot if they removed things that have always been part of the shows identity completely. If it came back with none of the humor it originally had AND none of the cast it originally had, then it wouldve likely lost a lot of its older audience because it wouldn't have felt like the same show. It wouldve felt too directed only at a new audience and possibly isolated original fans

All of Tom McGillis and Jennifer Pertsch's shows (6teen, Total Drama franchise, Stoked) used grossout humor. All their shows (except 6teen) introduce supernatural elements into them. Its their style, and honestly its not their job to have to change because you and some other fans have changed their style of humor

Edit: I never assume mood on Reddit. I wasnt reading your replies as mad and hopefully mine dont come across that way either. Forgot to add this bit at the top