It is true that leapers like the Champion take longer to move from one end of the board to another laterally. I guess the thing here is that statistically it is not very important to do that. For one, on 8x8 the easily accessible area of the two copies of a piece you usuallly have overlaps a lot, and it really takes a very wide board before there emerges a region where you cannot get one of the two where youu specifically need that type. As long as the piece is useful on the wing where it is, not much is lost by the fact that it acnnot swicth wings. If you need unequal distribution of power between the wings, you can achieve that with the aid of the pieces that can easily switch. If you have enough of those, it doesn't hurt that you have some that cannot.
It is true that leapers like the Champion take longer to move from one end of the board to another laterally. I guess the thing here is that statistically it is not very important to do that. For one, on 8x8 the easily accessible area of the two copies of a piece you usuallly have overlaps a lot, and it really takes a very wide board before there emerges a region where you cannot get one of the two where youu specifically need that type. As long as the piece is useful on the wing where it is, not much is lost by the fact that it acnnot swicth wings. If you need unequal distribution of power between the wings, you can achieve that with the aid of the pieces that can easily switch. If you have enough of those, it doesn't hurt that you have some that cannot.