Testing against known real-world popular combinations (1-2-3-4-5-6,
5-10-15-20-25-30) showed the sum-near-mean penalty scored them HIGHER
than spread-out combinations - the opposite of intended. Tight
sequential clusters produce both a strong pattern match AND an extreme
sum from the same underlying cause, so treating "extreme sum" as an
independent unpopularity signal double-counted in the wrong direction
for exactly the combinations it should penalize most.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
cbazzaandClaude Sonnet 5
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