IsFriday, you are one of the people who should understand from the GMH's side of things what I'm talking about. I'll try to be clearer:
There are 10 PCs who are hunters, who have at least a passing interest in being hunters for either Kadius or Salarr. Might be new players, might be veteran players, might be a little of both.
The Salarr recruiting PC can only log in 4 hours per week. During peak time, but only 4 hours. The Kadian recruiting PC can log in 2 hours every single day, during peak time.
Salarr nabs eight of those hunters, three are new players.
Kadius gets two. One of them is a new player.
Kadius's new player doesn't understand the seriousness of "don't leave the gates without an officer in your first recruiting month of employment with the House" and promptly dies to a scrab in his fifth hour of play, leaving Kadius with one PC.
Salarr's new players have more of a chance to actually meet up with the other Salarris, so they'll only lose one of those new players, leaving the clan strong with 7 members - two of whom are new, but having plenty of interaction with the other clanned players.
Kadius's hunting crew flounders - since there's only one of them, and the recruiting PC isn't around for another 3 RL days.
Salarr's unit is thriving - except the warehouse can't store any more hides and their crafters can't keep up with the massive amount of supply coming in. So the hunters are ordered to stop hunting. There just isn't any room for anything in the compound anymore, codedly.
Kadius needs fresh meat but can't get any, because Salarr already has it, and the one who just died is now playing a warrior in the Legion, and the other dead recruit in Salarr is now a half-elven rinthi assassin/thug.
If there was a pool -
The recruiting PC from Kadius could go to the pool, announce that he needs two hunters to help his employee collect 2 duskhorn horns, a dozen amethysts, and a pouch of various herbs in the next half-month. The three make arrangements and head out. If one's lost, there's a replacement standing by in the pool.
Meanwhile, Salarr has the recruiting PC, one lifesworn Second Hunter, and two full hunters. They don't need eight hunters, because - there's a pool. Those four can handle most of the stuff needing to get done, and any time they need more bulk they can draw from the pool. And when the bulk-work is over, they revert back to the four. Less salary paid out, less food and water to supply to the employees, more stuff for fewer people to do, giving them more of a chance to make an impact than when the playerbase of that one clan was so diluted with people who really weren't needed.
This is how I see the pool. Not as a convenience for independents to not be clanned and still be in a clan. But rather for GMHs to not have to deal with the all-or-nothing OOC-created mess that they often have to deal with ICly.