Another thing I love about the new list is that it has a fantastic curve for Counterbalance+Top...

0cc - 20 Cards
4 Flooded Strand
2 Windswept Heath
2 Polluted Delta
1 Forest
1 Plains
2 Island
2 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland

1cc - 17 Cards
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
2 Divert
3 Sensei's Divining Top

2cc - 12 Cards
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Daze
4 Counterbalance

3cc - 5 Cards
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Trygon Predator

4cc - 2 Cards
2 Mystic Enforcer

5cc - 4 Cards
4 Force of Will

Omega,

Wasteland isn't there as a trick. It's there because...

a.) The curve of the deck is so much higher these days than it used to be.

CB+Top eat up a lot of mana.
KOR, Trygon Predator and Mystic Enforcer eat up a lot of mana
Playing around Daze eats up a lot of mana.
If you replaced Divert with O. Ring like you suggest, the eats up more mana too.

b.) The early threshold builds ran 14-16 cantrips along with 4 Werebear to support a land count of 17-18. Some builds ran roughly twice the number of cantrips we currently run. (Just take a look at the lists in the OP if you don't believe me). Even an year ago, the builds usually ran 12 cantrips or so. But since making room for CB+Top, the deck has had to cut out a lot of it's older cantrips, but has never upped it's manacount to make up for this. The current builds run 8-10 cantrips, no Werebears, and a much higher curve to boot.

c.) More and more decks blow up your lands these days (Sinkhole, Stifle and Wasteland are more popular than ever before).

d.) Wasteland infact is useful against Factories, Scrying Sheets, Mutavaults, Cabal Coffers, Ancient Tomb, Academy Ruins, or just a random dual.

By playing Wasteland, you deal with all four of the above problems. And on the very rare occasion that you do draw more lands than you needed, Wasteland can usually find a useful target that hurts your opponent's game plan.

As for Divert, it counters FoW, StP, Snuff Out, Counterspell, Smother, Burn, Edict and all sorts of other randomness. When you divert a removal spell to an opponent's own creature, you buy a metric ton of tempo for just one mana. And the list of randomness is pretty big. For example, if you have a Top in play, Divert can counter Stifle by diverting the card to Top. If instead, you have a Counterbalance in play but know that your top card isn't Stifle, I think you might be able to Divert Stifle onto Counterbalance isntead. Regardless, I found Divert to be really solid esp since all our threats are must counter or must kill cards for your opponents. You can play O. Ring or Spell Snare if you want, but I've been very happy with Divert.

I think if you try the list, you would come to the same conclusion as bowvamp.