Sorry Nick, although I try to keep up to date on the postings on this, and other boards, I work all week for long hours and don't usually get the chance to catch up with things until I get a day off on a Sunday.
The Clypse was before my time, being last used in 1959, although the circuit ran up Watterson Lane, just a few yards from my home. My mother remembers it well, as do many people here on the Island. As you say, it never really caught on, hence the short life span of the circuit. Only thing I can say is that I would have loved the chance to race on it myself, as I'm sure most true road racers would do, but as a result of many changes in Onchan Village and developments in the fields on Watterson Lane, this will never happen, and the Clypse course is just a memory to those who were able to remember it.
I fully agree with Nick that the 125/250 races taking place on the Billown circuit should NEVER be considered TT races. The Steam Packet meeting on the Saturday at the end of TT week has been a great success since it was introduced in 1991, although it's fair to say the fields were never as large as those for the Southern 100 proper, but after two hard weeks of practice and race at the TT, that's hardly surprising. Now it appears that the 400cc class doesn't get a ride at all, and the 125 and 250 become TT races!
I'm sure that the meeting will be very successful and the crowds will flock down to watch, myself included, and I hope sincerely that it goes off safely for all concerned. But TT? No, that finished the previous day.
I could write loads more on this topic, but I will suffice by pledging my agreement with Nick's posting. With regards to your last paragraph as to the future, I really don't know. Pardon me if I don't share the rosy optimism of some I could mention. Things have changed dramatically in the last few years regarding the TT, and although I agree changes have to take place, the current TT format and atmosphere is something which I find quite alien to me, and is far removed from that which I have grown up with and been involved with in one guise or another all my life. I shudder to think what the situation could be in , say, ten years time. I cannot imagine June without the TT, it's all I've ever known.
I consider myself so fortunate to have witnessed the Golden Age of road racing on the TT course in the late 60's / early to mid-70's, and I have so many memories and so much knowledge of those days.