Let's not waste effort debating what it means to be "surprised," which is beside the point. All I mean is that there are a lot of meritorious claims, because there genuinely is a lot of abuse. But as a fraction of the claims filed, this remains relatively small because of the extremely large number of unmeritorious claims that are actually filed.
As for my experience: I'm not sure what more information you want beyond what I have already given, except to add: my job in the federal courts included reviewing and advising judges on the small fraction of claims that made it through the triage stage I described earlier and might have had a decent chance of success, as well as occasionally reviewing claims that would otherwise have been filtered out at the triage stage to provide a second opinion.
As for my experience: I'm not sure what more information you want beyond what I have already given, except to add: my job in the federal courts included reviewing and advising judges on the small fraction of claims that made it through the triage stage I described earlier and might have had a decent chance of success, as well as occasionally reviewing claims that would otherwise have been filtered out at the triage stage to provide a second opinion.