Wrong. It's all the assholes moving in at the last second that causes it to be stopped traffic. Once you get past the actual closed lane, cars start moving normal again. It's all because of people like you that it gets backed up for miles.
No. You get over when there's a dynamic place. If everyone waits for the LAST SECOND it's no good, but if everyone merges immediately it's worse. The lane is open for awhile to be used. When people use it, the flow of traffic is better. That's not an opinion, it's a well documented fact that has had plenty of testing.
The problem is no one merges dynamically. So you end up with traffic backed up a mile, cars screaming down to the cones and then wanting to merge into bumper to bumper traffic