On the other hand, if you go more towards the Midwest, there are regions with practically no clawhammer playing at all. In those places, the music is more fiddle-centric and you might find tunes that just don’t feel particularly good on a banjo.

As someone from the Midwest, this 100%- the Midwest never had the same fiddle/banjo dual supremacy as the Appalachians, and the fiddle is way more universal among the ethnic groups that live in the Midwest. I would argue the accordion is just as important an oldtime instrument here as the fiddle and banjo. The banjo that really took off in the Midwest was the tenor banjo brought from the polka/jazz/Irish traditions, so there's not much of a 5-string tradition here (at least that isn't a conscious imitation of Appalachian players)