If SF4 didn’t have dashing and Focus I’d be perfectly ok with no wake up. But those two things totally kill any chance Claw has at dominating.
A good example is ST. In ST, you can play o.Claw (no ST, so no wake up game) successfully because he is so dangerous. He can actually poke and not be focus attacked for doing what Claw does, which is poke and keep people out. He has all the tools needed to keep someone out. ST Claw with Scarlet Terror is really strong, much more so than o.Claw which is why he gets top 3 character in the game. Boxer, Sim, and Claw, are all on equal playing ground in that game.
In ST, every normal is usable. Every. Single. Normal. Is a great attack in the game. St.jab to keep people from jumping in at certain ranges, usable against Dictator’s head stomp shenanigans, st.Strong usable to trade or beat Sonic Booms and Max Outs at maximum range, st.Fierce to keep an opponent in block stun from long range. St.Short is a great move to keep forward momentum attacks like Blanka Ball out if you have good reactions, it’s also good for tick throw setups, st.Forward is one of his most godly moves that beats a lot of attacks clean, like Tatsu, and st.Roundhouse is your long range AA tool to keep people out from a distance. Then you have all the crouching moves, cr.Jab isn’t as useful as cr.Strong since it will do everything cr.Jab does with more block stun, but it comes out a tad quicker which can be useful for canceling to the wall. Cr.Strong is your bread and butter tool, use it to cancel, use it for long range pokes, it’s fast start up makes it hard to react to. You can use it to force opponents to block, which pushes them back, keeping them out, and then there is the fear that you can cancel to the wall. Cr.Fierce is godlike in that it AA’s many attacks and also stops opponents from jumping out of a block string. Cr.Short isn’t a very good attack, but if you score a point blank meaty you can 6 hit combo it into Fierce RCF, cr.Forward is godly for combos with cr.Strong, and on fat opponents it can combo into itself, and cr.Roundhouse is extremely usable if you space it right, though many crouching attacks can beat it or trade favorably. His air game is decent, and his neutral jump game will shut down many air and ground attempts to get in. Want to be Ken’s fierce SRK? Neutral jump fierce at a distance.
Still incredibly strong without Scarlet Terror, and the main difference is opponents either block his pokes or eat damage. No Focus Attack to soak up damage and build Ultra. Another obviously glaring difference is the fact 99% of his normals are useful. I have yet to find a use for st.Forward, far st.Fierce, or st.Strong in SF4. Why even bother? They’re so slow and have tons of recovery, opponents can just jump them or Focus them for damage or space. RCF has humongous start up so it’s essentially worthless as a poke tool or to escape under an opponent’s jump arc. Wall dive is worthless because of Focus or Focus dash, so there is no fear of wall dive loops on wake up. Pretty much everything that made him strong in past games is obliterated in SF4. Half of his normals being useful and only hit confirmed EX versions of his specials are any good.
I guess what I’m getting at, is that I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t give us EX ST, but they would have to compensate to make every normal attack a viable tool to use by making them faster start up and recovery and better hit boxes so that opponent’s can’t easily Focus or jump him when he pokes. They should also buff his specials, give FBA some buffs because it really needs to be faster and harder to react to, make it usable, make RCF faster, give us some chances to do some non-EX damage for once. Claw is all about speed but he feels so slow in SF4.
Then, and only then, would I not give a shit about wake up game, because if I play right, they shouldn’t be able to get in. This is coming from an o.Claw player in ST, so I’m more than adjusted to not having a wake up option other than wake up throw (throws are 0 frame start up) as my only option for dealing with pressure.