That's exactly how early seasons played out before they instituted that rule.
Not even. There's no 'rule' about clumping, it's just something that they attempt to cause for the reasons stated. They've simply gotten vastly better at it over time. The very first season had clumping points, all of them do. Heck there are teams that get vastly better flights in the first few legs sometimes, if that lead maintained and only grew? it would become ridiculous. Even now it's not unheard of for teams to check in up to 12 hours ahead of time at a pit stop, if those leads weren't diminished we'd have no show. Was it satisfying that the Guidos were eliminated remotely because they were 24 hours or more behind in season 1? Sure, but we also were lucky that Frank and Margarite were still somewhat close too, otherwise it would've just been Rob and Brennan being a day ahead for the previous like 4 legs.