Would the latch still work without the clock pass transistors? It seems to me that as long as there is no overlap between hold and load and they are not both low for too long it would store a bit in a controlled fashion. The output would change earlier with no relation to the clock, so that might be a problem (or not) depending on the next circuit.
Yes, that's how the 6502's registers work: two inverters with pass transistors for hold and load. As you point out, the tradeoff is that the latch is no longer clocked, so the latch doesn't help you do things synchronously.
