Why do they hide the rules?
I think most people agree that there are some secret rules requiring teams to do certain things each route and forbidding them from going on certain routes. But the annoying thing about this is that without informing the audience of these rules, we can't ever really understand how much each team is actually responsible for their own success or if they were just given bad options.
As Mark and Margo are way behind and might not be able to finish the race, we have to wonder if one of the teams was always going to have to go to this out of the way place and forced to spend loads of money and time backtracking etc.
It seems clear (not sure if it has been confirmed) that teams must do so much work and so many home stays and do so many tourist activities during their trip. It also seems clear that the routes are chosen by production. (Otherwise the leg crossing Turkey would have been doable in half a day)
Someone in another post said that the German version made it clear that they had 4 route choices and the teams got to choose which of the pre-arranged routes they would take based on the order they arrived at the checkpoint. If this is the case, why do they pretend that each team starts each leg by looking at a map and deciding how to go? Just tell us what rules the teams must follow and then we can understand their decision making.
Do most people just prefer not knowing the rules?