Yes this is a common excuse, but I think it’s a complete flaw in the design, yes it can’t match to what you were trying to achieve, but it can determine what you did achieve, and surely this would be a far better way to have gone (as in how Xert, Join and Breakaway work)
The fact that if you intend to 2 * 20 @ threshold, but only achieved 2 * 20 @ Sweetspot, isn’t picked up AT, but you still achieved a good training session, and should be credited with that, infact the current system is more give you the wrong credit for the wrong group
So with outside workouts it should be the same, who cares what you were trying to achieve, if I go out with the intention of doing 2 * 20, but end up doing 4hours of Z2, who cares what the intention was, what did I actually achieve
After AT went live, and people were complaining about outside rides, I did point out that Nate said in the AT launch video in Feb 2021 that he has a working version of outside rides, TR replied a said that version has been scrapped, as there were unforeseen challenges, and a completely new version