I don't think clans should be removed, we aren't going to ban anyone with a [ ] in their nick, unless you want the community to burst.
A feasible alternative is to give up "official" support for clans. This means: removing the clan board, stop kicking unaffiliated players for using a clan tag, etc.
I think this should be done. Clans are contributing to distort the "team play" philosophy of this game, as their alliances usually override what their teams is supposed to do. So, at least, they shouldn't receive any kind of support by the management... Unfortunately the management doesn't consider this a priority, although it's forcing new players to quit every hour of every day, so don't expect nothing like this to happen :p
Clans exist for a reason
Yeah, so you can get all together and hunt newbies, right?