Derek and Drew were good, I don't remember why they weren't liked (just better than most of the other teams, I think). Charla and Myrna I could not stand, they were whiny and spent half their time talking about how they were going to screw over the other teams and the other half whining about how the other teams hated them/wouldn't help them/were scared or jealous of them. Now, if Charla found a partner who wasn't Mirna, maybe she'd be ok...
And "getting into the other players' heads" shouldn't really be a part of the race. I only remember it affecting TAR7 twice - the meat roadblock, where yes, it helped, and the one where he managed to convince two of the other teams that he was on a better flight than they were, and they hustled around and actually found a better flight and ended up beating him. Hehehe.
I'd like to see Nancy and Emily and Kevin and Drew from Season 1 back, if we limit it only to non-winners. They were awesome. That was the best season.