How can that be fair? Robbed.
All changes to the GPM have been unfair, and they have been with the intent of protecting its value and improving competition for it in order to increase the spectacle. The GPM has to bend around the route design and as a result as parcours trends change, the GPM changes to react to this.
The doubling of points was applied on all stages where a HC, cat.1 or cat.2 climb was the last climb of the day. This was introduced as a response to the Richard Virenque method, creating the classic "king of the breakaways" where he simply went away knowing full well he had no chance of winning the stage, but collecting points and then being brought back wearing a Monday morning commute expression having done his job for the day, then saving energy to do the same again. This stood in contrast to the traditional use of these long breaks by climbing specialists, à la Bahamontes, Fuente, van Impe, Herrera and Chiappucci, who were elite climbers with lopsided skillsets who were going on long attacks and winning mountain summits in an attempt to improve their GC position in the only location that suited them, back in the days of nearly 200km of time trial. However, improvements in professionalism and the depth of the péloton meant these 100km four col escapes were the exception not the norm, and time trial mileage was reduced to try to improve spectacle - but thereby this reduced the deficits for the climbers on the GC, meaning they were more tightly marked, less inclined to go on those high risk attacks, or both. The doubling of points served to benefit both MTFs and final climb attacks among GC men and balanced the GC threats against the Virenque point-collectors.
Then there was an era where bonus seconds for stage wins/podiums were removed, to try to redress the change to the balance of the parcours in the TT, and also because it was the "péloton à deux vitesses" era and there were no French GC candidates, so arranging it so there was less incentive for the heads of state to chase the break gave riders like Sandy Casar, Pierrick Fédrigo, Christophe Riblon and Cyril Dessel their days to shine. Combining this disincentivisation of the GC guys chasing the break down with the dreadful stages of around 2009-10 where there were final climbs paying double points but being 70km+ from the finish so nobody in their right mind would attack on them, this overbalanced the GPM in favour of the escapees, so after the damp squib of 2010 where Radioshack chased down Christophe Moreau to stop Caisse d'Epargne threatening the Teams Classification (Unzué again) and Anthony Charteau was thereby mathematically already the KOM before the queen stage even got 10km up the road, they redesigned it again so that double points only happened when it was an MTF.
This worked OK for a while, with Samu and Quintana winning as GC riders and Majka winning in the "salvage a race that had gone awry" fashion, but with the recent trend of TT mileage going ever downwards, and the decreasing number of stages with multiple passes, the number of points available for MTFs has meant it has become increasingly difficult to win the GPM if you are not a GC man, and they by and large are not targeting it (it's not Spain in the 60s anymore) because they're targeting the yellow jersey. ASO were unlucky in 2019 that the weather robbed us of what would have likely been one of the best GPM fights in years, with Simon Yates (probably the most worthy winner for my money, in similar style to Majka's wins or Nieve and Landa's Giro GPMs), Bardet and Quintana duking it out over the last two days. But in 2020 you had two weeks of almost no competition for the jersey as there were so many points available in the last few days relative to the rest of the race that no competition even developed; and then Richard Carapaz - absolutely an elite climber - trying to win the GPM in the fashion of Majka or Bardet, but despite lighting up consecutive mountain stages and collecting almost every point available on a major mountain stage, he lost out to a GC man who had only picked up points by rolling over the summit with the heads of state and attacking on a couple of final climbs. In 2021, Wout Poels and Michael Woods (as well as Nairo Quintana) - again, the kind of riders who might be a sensible bet for somebody who would target the GPM - actively went out there targeting that jersey, but despite near constant battles in the breaks to secure points, weren't able to beat Pogačar because with such a huge haul of points on hand for MTFs and his winning back to back stages on HC summits in week 3, he overhauled nearly three weeks of work from some genuinely strong climbers in a couple of days without trying.
It's similar to the green jersey overhaul a decade or so ago. Mark Cavendish won 11 stages across the 2009 and 2010 Tours, but he lost the jersey to two riders who won 3 stages between them in those races - 6-1 in 2009 and 5-2 in 2010. The green jersey had already been tilted in sprinters' favour to prevent it being won by default by GC men, by making some stages worth more points than others (which also had the linked outcome of making the punishment for missing the time cut less, too, as mountain stages pay fewer points than flat ones), but the divide between victories and placements was deemed too low when Petacchi need just shadow Cav for most of the 2010 race and Hushovd managed to settle the green jersey in 2009 not by winning a sprint but by going on a solo break in the mountains, completely the opposite of the intention of the jersey.
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