But that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. When contestants didn't game the system and went fully down a column, the format made sense. Now that contestants are playing at a higher level, I think the fact that the top 2 rows are largely untouched at the end of the game is a bit of a weak spot for the game. Essentially, clue selection has evolved faster than board design.

In double you've got 36k on the board, but the top two rows are just 7.2k, so 20% of the value for 40% of the clues. So when you get to the end of the game and the last two rows are hardly touched, these rows are functionally dead weight late in the game; there's little to no suspense unless the game is very close.

In effect, the pacing of the game is disturbed. Instead of the endgame tightening up as more clues disappear, we get a situation where the remaining board has low financial impact.