I just spent 2 weeks doing the core 10k by wanikani levels. I am about to delete the deck an move to the original core 10k. The way its sorted by wanikani levels makes it impossible to learn some words.
For example, here are one lessons worth of words:
上がる to go up
上がる to improve
上がる to be finished
上がる to eat
all of these within a few cards of each other.
or the day I got:
上(うえ) above
上(じょう) superior
上 (かみ)govermnent official.
or the day I got:
下る
下す
下りる
下がる
下り
I think having the words arranged by meaning complexity and use is probably way more helpful for the core 10k than having EVERY SINGLE word related to the lvl 1, 2, 3, vocab thrown at me in sequence.
Its taking me like 5x as long to memorize each of these incredibly similar words.