They changed the nature of powerup probability distributions to be based on distance from first, rather than position in race. It's now entirely possible to get

They changed the nature of powerup probability distributions to be based on distance from first, rather than position in race. It's now entirely possible to get a blue shell in 2nd if the person in 1st is half a lap ahead of everyone else. Your point still stands, but you need to maintain a large distance from 1st which A) is much harder to tell what distance threshold you're at and B) is usually too far to recover in 1-2 powerups. I much prefer the new system, most ranked games of mario kart tend to involve the majority of people in a large group using the weaker, more skillful items to pull ahead. If any one person pulls too far ahead of the group for any reason then the entire group suddenly gets a huge shift in powerup strength to close the gap again.