I'm someone who has loved and hated Samurai. In it's toned down, tame Thorpe location it has on the rare occasion surprised me but majority of the time it is a glorified ferris wheel. Maybe that's okay for the up for it families that Thorpe want to attract, I don't know but for one of the most thrilling rides in the planet, I find Samurai embarrassing.
Now, the thing is with a new Top-Scan, I want Thorpe to get rides that are going to last generations, not ones that have a five year shelf life at best. It's been a valiant effort to keep Samurai going, but lets face it, if they'd just packed it in around 2011 when it started spending half the season closed, a lot of wasted time would have been saved. Slammer's been open more this season, even Smiler has. Do we really want another ride that in 2020 will be closed more then it is open? If the answer is yes then so be it, but lets face it we don't know if the park are even considering this.
Finally, of course Samurai is popular at Thorpe. It's wedged in between two rollercoasters, it spends 2/3 minutes zeroing and it has a throughput that makes Rattlesnake blush.