Terje: Why do SkiO's only skate?

Hi... This one's for Terje.

I just looked into Ski-O. It seems they only skate. The online handbook says that skating off-trail in narrow conditions in loose snow up hills is hard and to herringbone and get purchase with the tips in the snow to the sides. It sounds miserable. Herringbone also doesn't work at all with un-kickwaxed skate-skis. Ugh! But it must be faster overall. On the flipside, such conditions sound perfect for classic. I suppose most SkiO courses only have a small amount of offtrail and one makes up the time on the groomers?

Classic vs Skating has long been interesting to me. Word is that WC skiers are 10% faster when skating. I suppose normal trails and normal skiers -- even at the top level of SkiO -- are faster yet when skating.

Anyway, just wondering your thoughts on this.

Thanks, JP