I don't think that Vice absolutely needs meter to be effective.
I think of her a bit like Shen. They both are weaker without meter and benefit a lot from it , but they can build their meter just fine on their own, have a nice pressure game, good normals, damaging combos that don't require a lot of meter and command grabs.
The more I think about Clark and Goro the more I think that they're roughly on the same level in terms of what they can do and how effective they are with meter
I really don't agree with that. Goro has a lot more ways to use his meter than Clark.
First of all almost all of Goro's grabs are drive/super cancellable, Clark has to use his EX grab for that.
Goro's EX Earthquake move is a fullscreen anti fireball move (and an overhead up close), so it's riskier to try and zone him out with fireballs unlike Clark who is only a threat up close.
And at that range, Goro's EX roll is a bigger threat because his EX roll can even lead to a full HD combo.
Speaking of HD combos, Goro can land his HD combos in many ways : counterhit j.CD , air to air j.CD in the corner, even his EX grab which can be cancelled out of his invincible EX Roll.
Also, because Goro's HD combo is composed of mostly grabs, it builts very little (if any) meter for the opponent, which is a very nice bonus.
I am no Goro or Clark expert, my main team is Athena/Kyo/Yuri, in that order. But unless I really don't know how Clark can spend his meter, saying that Clark can do as much as Goro with meter is not true. Goro is mostly used as anchor after all.