The unavailability of Hikari to JR Pass holders (it also applies to other passholders like Jipangu Club - for senior citizens) is getting very annoying. The connecting time at Shin Osaka is typically around 30 minutes between JR Central Hikari and Hikari Railstar on JR West (no Green Class accommodation). And while there are up to 2 Hikari departures from Tokyo, Hihari Railstar only goes hourly from Shin Osaka. Some Hikari trains stop at a lot of stations, further extending travel time. So for example, leaving Tokyo around 10 am, a through Nozomi gets you to Hiroshima in little over 4 hours, while Hikari (with one change) takes from 5 to 5.5 hours, with up to an hour's wait at Shin Osaka.
In spite of protestations, JR Central seems unlikely to change their bans on Nozomi, as they clearly want to preserve revenue from predominently business passengers and avoid overcrowding on what they see as a premium service. At least to their credit, JR West do allow holders of JR West Sanyo Area pass to travel Nozomi in their region, and JR East, who operate in Central and Eastern Japan, allow passholders to use any train on their Shinkansen routes.
A good discussion on this in the Japanese edition of Wikipedia under 'Japan Rail Pass'.
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