@Krakenos, @thisguyisbarry -- Using a co-op baby disables continue for sure. Not certain if there are other causes.

As for the S&Q, I think it adds another layer of strategy to racing, which I like. I'm a newer racer, and had never even played BOI before February of this year. While there is some knowledge required to exploit things like block clipping, I don't see the difference for newer players between this and black market clips. Neither are intuitive, but one is already allowed. The save and quit part isn't the technically hard to grasp part in my opinion. Pause buffering is also implicitly allowed (or at least I've seen people do it in races and haven't heard of it being disallowed), which is another un-intuitive mechanic for newer players.

Competing in races is just hard as a newer player, and by the time most players are competitive, I think these mechanics are fairly well understood (assuming they participate in the community at all). Just my two cents, anyway.