i think the criticisms are fair, in the contexts of smogons attempt to standardise and streamline things. This decision seems made in a different way to others.
The first way of looking at it:
when you assess the ban as opposed to the alternative: keeping sleep clause but getting rid of valiant/darkrai. This is where this ban looks ridiculous, and inconsistent. It’s so clear that there are a small minority of abusers making it uncompetitive. And the decision contradicts statements made about how controversial aspects of the metagame are treated. This isn’t the first contradiction, but unlike kings rock, the justification isn’t as valid, as it’s damaging yawn, spore, sleep powder users. Banning kings rock had negligible side effects. Banning sleep, where sleep clause is the alternative.. a lot less fair
the second way of looking at it:
however when you assess the ban opposed to a whole structural issue, I.e. should sleep clause have been there in the first place, ie unrestricted sleep in general being too OP, then that’s fair, but it’s also untested (empirically in gen 9, at least). In particular the most potent sleep moves: spore and sleep powder, have more counterplay due to their users not being so potent against the checks. Although it’s admittedly a ridiculous assumption to say that unrestricted sleep is worth testing empirically, at the very least a big change like this should be treated with a little more care. Maybe spore and powder users were not as competitive as hypnosis dice rollers?? In VGC we see counterplay like safety goggles and Tera grass. For all we know, in OU we may have seen poison garganacl, Mandibuzz and safety goggles pivots..!
Reality:
we all don’t give a f and are gonna play OU anyway. But please respond to this feedback and show us how things are getting even clearer and better. I guess you need this feedback because it makes smogon gaming more attractive over time, rather than less attractive.