It's too bad that your area doesn't have Cat5 races. That's the way it is supposed to work. Forcing you into Cat4/5 kind of defeats the purpose. That said, the whole "throw them into a pack and see who survives" strategy of USAC is broken, but don't think that they actually care. USAC is an arm of the UCI. All they care about is pro racing and pro racing development. The rest is just a cash cow money sink and a price to pay for the end product. Just wait until grand fondos start replacing your local crits. It's coming.