Snaking kills an already mediocre game and makes it worse all in the face of being competitive. If you play against anyone else who snakes, you can't win unless you also snake. It's impossible no matter how good you are, so you're forced to snake. Those people who don't snake in that same race would just get overlapped by the end of the race. When I played the game, I got atleast one person who snaked almost every other race where I had to. I don't like to lose, so what do you expect me to do?
However it got to the point that after drifting around a corner and boosting, that I'd snake a few times and then stop, even on races without other people snaking. Basically I got used to doing it so often in races that I couldn't help but do it here and there.
But yeah. That's the reason why snaking is bad. It's such an easy thing to abuse and kills the competition.
I think Nintendo really should retool Mario Kart altogether honestly though. The Kart racing thing is fine, but have any of you played Chocobo Racing? There was a materia system in place where you picked up a level one ice which was similar to the banana, or level one fire, which is similar to the green turtle shell but dissipated when hitting a wall, but level two ice was a larger area of ice, level two fire was a homing fireball. Basically this didn't give people who were behind an advantage. First or last you'd be getting the exact same materia.
So Nintendo should retool the way the system works where every item in play randomizes, however, if it randomizes in box one to a red turtle shell, no matter who picks it up it'll be a red turtle shell. If it randomizes into a blue shell on item two, then it'll be a blue shell for everyone. Everyone should also have the option of picking any of them up and hitting a button in order to destroy the item. This would give first place a sort of tactical advantage so there would still be skill involved and wouldn't be penalized by getting nothing but bananas the entire time while second and third are getting triple turtle shells and stars and you're not forced to sandbag just so you can take advantage of this.
This idea would actually make the Mario Kart series better, because it'd be more balanced and more competitive than. Here. You suck, or atleast we think you suck because you're fourth place, so here's a lucky 7.
It's not like you don't commonly get the machine gun when in last place or quake while in first game on Wipeout, and even when you're in last place and you do get quake it damages all opponents in front of you and slows them down a bit. It doesn't hit them and make them fly high in the air then drop. First place probably wouldn't even be passed when quake hits and last place wouldn't gain too many positions, even if he was the one who used it.
I'm competitive so I'd rather have more balanced racing. This is the reason why Nintendo needs to release another F Zero game. Based more on skill, less on luck sandbagging and luck.