The whole "wildcard" crap in the Diamond League makes no sense

A country can't send more than 4 athletes in an individual event, so World champ WC > DL champ WC. What's so hard to understand?

I would say that even though it didn't work out for runners like Wiley, Nuguse and Hoey, it certainly added a lot of interest to the meet.

to quote one of the announcers/commentators (British guy) - "last chance saloon". Some (in some countries) made auto times last week (deadline Aug.24), this was the very last opportunity, and on a big stage (DL Final), so added to the drama. Americans and Aussies, in particular, had a few opportunities. I think that was well spelled out by the feed commentators - Steve Cram and Andrew Cotter.

god forbid we have a "regular season" meet that actually means something.

It is to get the top talent in the Diamond League. A 5k guy could have run a road race instead of the DL final 3k. DL also didn't know that Grand Slam wouldn't end up being much of a competitor.

Just don't think about it.

USATF has nothing to do with 'Wild Cards'. The concept is led by World Athletics to 1- give even stronger incentive to win a global championship in avoiding qualifying for the next one.

2- Ensuring that a top star who misses out in qualifying can still be at global meet, drawing fans.

Not designed to complicate US process, and usually it's known before USA meet who has wild cards.