Road to 10bb/100

Analysis is ture for every limit where rake is high or if you can get a lot of rake back effectively lowering rake.

You need to be much much better than the field not only to beat them, but at that point you much better off playing higher. What's the point in being best nl50 reg if you can play and win at 200.

We agree. I was mostly pushing back against the idea that without 'fish' most good regs will struggle to hit solid WR.

I think some of the confusion arises from definitions. Eg: I find the way MDA world categorises fish quite misleading (i.e. high vpip/pfr difference), whereas to me those are more like whales/super fish. Whereas there are plenty of technically 'reg-type' players (in some pools, most) with fairly solid preflop stats who are total fish/stations postflop and constantly bleeding EV. Preflop being one of the easiest nodes to fix for noobs and badregs alike.

sorry that was a bit of a tangent.. let me take another stab:

Your analysis shows that majority of regs are making the majority of WR from whales/fish, and losing to rake vs each other? Logical and I agree. My contention is that this analysis is not necessarily indicative of the beatability of the games themselves, as most regs are bad/mediocre.
As you say, a crusher would move up, so the stakes naturally harmonize around this central equalisation. Which gives the (imo) misleading impression that stakes are less beatable than they truly are.

If vipp is too low unless they are ultra aggro and/or super stations post, you won't make too much money form those types.