I went to Carowinds on a Sunday (the day after SFOG) and thought i'd give a few notes.
-The day started off with some confusion and frustration with the way they opened the park. It appeared that they let (I think) premium AP holders roam the park 30 minutes early, while everyone else waits at a rope drop near the front of the park for regular opening time. I got lucky here because I had the SF gold pass but the security guard at rope drop didn't know what to do, so I think he let me past when he wasn't supposed to (to be fair I had no idea what was going on so I just showed him my AP and he let me go, I didn't realize it was probably supposed to be premium until I saw very few people in the park compared to rope drop. Its possible SF gold pass is allowed in early as well but I don't know).
The odd thing is that no rides opened until the normal opening time, which was 11am...so from 1030-11 everyone with an AP just kind of picked a ride and waited at the entrance until 11. First off this doesn't seem like much of a benefit to just be able to wait at a rides entrance 30 minutes early...but also there was no one hosting any of the rides entrances...so I had no idea what time the rides were going to open. I went to Intimidator and at first I thought the ride was opening late, but realized nothing else was open either, but with no employees anywhere to be found near any ride there was no way to know. The ride did open exactly at 11.
-After that initial confusion and frustration everything was open. Everything appeared to be open and running full capacity, so Intimidator/Fury/Copperhead were all running 3 trains. However, they were all triple stacking, so I can't say operations were good...but the fact that everything was running full capacity and the rides weren't having chronic downtimes automatically made it better than SFOG.
-As we all know this park is very top heavy with a very good (although I wouldn't say elite) top 3. Fury is definitely above average for a B&M hyper, definitely a top 15 steel coaster and questionable top 10. Personally I like Shambahla and Goliath at SFOG better but Fury is probably my #3 B&M hyper. There are a lot that I haven't ridden in well over a decade so its hard to judge it against them.
Intimidator i'd say is a little bit below average for a B&M but its still a very good ride for this park. I have been on this ride before but haven't been to this park since 2015, I got to ride it in the front row on this visit and definitely gained a new respect for it. Front row is where its when you combine the wind at the bottom of the hills with the constant lift at the top of the hills.
-I'm not going to say Copperhead was bad but its not my kind of ride. I know a lot of Carowinds fans and enthusiasts love this ride, but it doesn't do much for me. I absolutely love Maverick at CP, which is 12 years older, but a much better ride in every way. So considering I guess you could say this is the equivalent of that its pretty lame and keeps Carowinds top 3 from making it a serious contender in the industry as far as a coaster collection IMO.
-Outside of that the parks ride collection is really poor. The remaining coasters are way old and outdated. Hurler is crap (I will admit I did not ride it because I didn't want to endure the pain), a really old unthemed corkscrew, a really old B&M standup, a really old Vekoma boomerang, a really old Vekoma hang-n-bang, a mediocre Mack mouse, a really old mine train. Its nice that they have a Sky Tower however it is short and not much to write home about there. The dark ride is...um...outdated but better than nothing. No train. The Camp Snoopy is large and looks nice but I found the rides there to be really intense for little kids rides. The Balloon Race was straight up nauseating (i've been on my share of balloon races and even operated one...this one feels like is on crack). Slow your kiddie rides down.
-Again similar to SFOG the Trick or Treats was barely anything. We didn't stay late enough for the parade, but the little section they had next to Afterburn was well decorated but it was so small and could easily be done in literally like 5-10 minutes and that includes the pumpkin patch building.
Anyway...for being SF's home park and being CF's home park for several years before that, the parks attraction lineup is subpar. There is 1 great coaster, 1 good coaster, 1 "meh" coaster, and the rest are poor. Family attractions could also best be described as "meh" at best. The park does look nice and they have kept up with it...the pavement could be resurfaced because there are a lot of cracks, but other than that I thought the landscaping was good and the park is pleasant to be at. But in order to make this a great park they need to start removing old rough rides and replacing them with modern ones.
An easy thing that would make this park much better is to re-do Hurler into Twisted Timbers. I have no idea why they haven't done this yet, it seems so obvious as it would take a ride everyone hates and make it into their best coaster. They could use a flat ride package for sure. Currently while this park is nice its not nearly as good as parks like KI or SFGAm, not even close.
I can kind of see some of the criticism here, but I think you can say similar things about pretty much every SF/CF park in the country. Fury is consistently rated as a top 10 coaster in virtually every ranking out there, and FWIW, it's not a "hyper", it's a "giga". I do agree that Intimidator/Thunder Striker is one of the weaker B&M hypers out there, but it's a solid compliment to Fury providing oodles airtime to counter the speed and intensity of Fury. Of the legacy CF parks that have a B&M hyper/giga pair, Fury/Thunder Striker is probably a touch better than Leviathan/Behemoth (Fury is better than Leviathan, but Behemoth is a tad better than Thunder Striker) with Orion/Diamondback a distant 3rd. I think you're seriously underrating Afterburn, which is top 3/4 in most US B&M invert rankings alongside Alpengeist, Montu, and Banshee (usually variable because of personal preference/dislike of the vest restraints). I can understand the comparison of Copperhead Strike to Maverick, but the Mack offers a much smoother ride (Maverick has gotten rattly over the past couple of years), more unique inversions, and far more comfortable restraints (Maverick's OTSRs can sometimes cut into your neck/shoulders during the high speed turns). The one drawback of Copperhead strike is its compact layout that limits the feeling of speed.
I do think you're onto something when criticizing the rest of the attraction lineup, because Carowinds is definitely lacking in that category with a mediocre set of clones. I will say that the Vekoma boomerang (Flying Cobras) does have second generation trains with vest restraints, so it's a more pleasant ride experience. Vortex is pretty lame, but if you're drawing comparisons to SFoG, it's not much different than Georgia Scorcher. Carolina Cyclone has probably reached the end of its useful life, but it's certainly not the worst Arrow looper out there. Hurler is easily the worst coaster in the park, and it's strange that it has not met the same fate as its former clone at Kings Dominion, which was converted into a great RMC, Twisted Timbers. It's clear that the park's next big project is going in the spot vacated by Nighthawk (early rumors are suggesting a B&M Dive Machine), but RMC conversions are generally not too expensive and could be an alternative to give guests something between larger projects, though I would hope that they wouldn't copy Twisted Timbers in converting this Hurler. Other supporting attractions at Carowinds are generally poor with an old Intamin gyro drop that is rarely running when I've visited, one of the worst maintained Boo Blasters we've ridden (after Canada's Wonderland), a Windseeker, and a couple of other mediocre flat rides. They did add Air Racers and Gear Spin, a pair of fun Zamperla flat rides, but they could use some more modern adult flat rides with better capacity to eat crowds and to even lines around the park.
However, when you look at the park as a whole, from a pure top to bottom attraction lineup basis, I would put Carowinds on even footing with most of the other medium/large sized parks in the chain. You could make many of your claims for Kings Island, Knott's, and Canada's Wonderland, which also boast very "top heavy" lineups
I completely forgot to include Afterburn. I will admit when I was younger I used to love the old-school intense B&M loopers (and they were relatively new back then), but as I got older my body started telling me different. I think the reason I forgot to include it is because the other 3 are relatively new and Afterburn is not..but yea Afterburn is kind of a mini-Montu, definitely one of the more intense inverts.
Banshee is personally my least favorite B&M invert because the trains/restraints and roughness, different strokes for different folks I guess. On a semi-related note the updated trains on old Vekoma Boomerangs don't make the ride better for me either, and the new trains on Space Mountain at Disneyland Paris made the ride a lot worse for me. I think I am the perfect height to be choked by vest restraints.
Fury may be a giga, but a giga is just a 300ft tall hyper, so I include it on my list of B&M hypers lol
I haven't been, I've always wanted to, and it's never been that far. . . But are you calling afterburn "meh" and copperhead "poor" or the other way around?