"Utiger et al., for example, split the genus Elaphe into a large number of morphologically undefinable genera that even snake experts cannot define."

You still stuck on that?

Come on, if you can't tell a Pantherophis from a Euprepriophis, you're blind.

"Doing so contributes nothing to our understanding of the relationship among the various subgroups of ratsnakes and in fact obscures the close relationship among them."

If all the segregate genera are closely related, no one's done any phylogenetic work to demonstrate it.