Back and border variations are pretty easy to ignore, though. The series succeeds or fails on the art and the gags.
That should be the case, but I fear that Topps has inflated their expectations because of the most serious collectors who were going for all border variations (except maybe gold). And, many card collectors consider back variations significant enough to collect. Topps basically doubled the total number of 'different' cards in ANS11, and the major collectors seem to have spoken - they're not buying into this madness.
At least with GPK, the use of art twice in a set comes with a different name on the front. ANS11 Wackys not only had no differences besides the reverses, they weren't even numbered so as to distinguish between variations.
My concern is that Topps will take the rejection of their crazy variations as a rejection of Wackys as a viable product. I think they need to scale things back before they lose more collectors.