My grumbling about PCC's has virtually nothing to do with HOA (although in smaller matches, overall results are really are that's worth looking at with all the divisions these days), but about how USPSA HQ didn't carefully work through some things. For instance, when I took my RO class, I was taught that the reason the rules expressly forbade having a shooter's hand even touching a gun (holstered or not) or even a magazine (in a pouch or in hand) before the buzzer was "safety." Yet it was deemed safe to allow PCC shooters to start virtually all stages with their loaded gun in their hands... meanwhile, no corresponding rethink of the rule on pistols.
Not only does this lead to an absurd logical disconnect (how is having a hand on a holstered pistol less "safe" than holding a loaded PCC?), they also removed one of the fundamental challenges of the game for PCC shooters. Until PCC came along, the first challenge on every stage was to obtain a firing grip on the gun. As anyone who has "missed their grip" on the clock can attest, this is not a step without some risk of a less-than-perfect result. Shooting a stage with a janky grip, or having to take half a second to sort it out, definitely changes outcomes. PCC rarely has to worry about that, because HQ didn't seem to give any consideration to this. And uprange-facing starts and other challenges also went away - things that are otherwise universal across divisions.
Moreover, because so many PCC shooters are now used to starting stages with their gun in their hands (thanks to a total lack of guidance from HQ on how to keep these challenges in place for PCC), if you do things to restore that challenge - such as requiring PCC's to start on a table or barrel - then PCC shooters get indignant and contend that you are trying to "punish" them. I guess that's true, but only where punish=have to do the same things/equivalent things as everyone else in the match.
Meanwhile, less clever MD's think that they're going to "slow down the PCC guys" or "give them a real challenge" by making targets smaller and farther away. This reminds me of when the old white guys in charge of professional golf got their feelings hurt that Tiger Woods was outdriving all the country club kids and winning too much. So they decided to "Tiger Proof" courses by making them so long that TW could no longer hit driver, 9-iron into par 5's. OK, so then Tiger hit driver, 5-iron, and the other guys were having to play them as 3-shot holes. Tiger won more. Our less-bright MD's do the same thing, throwing distant steel and 25 yard partials out there, and the only people not feeling anxiety about those shots are the PCC dudes.
Anyway, that's all water under the bridge. USPSA HQ screwed it up, and there's not really a good path to un-****ing it at this point. The game is still fun, so it doesn't really matter all that much.