First, a bit of history. The pocket 7-10 was extremely uncommon prior to the mid 70's. We started seeing it after the change from lacquer to urethane lane finish when they started oiling much shorter trying to combat carry down. The split occurs because the ball creates too much entry angle for the amount of rotational energy remaining. The ball still deflects, causing the weak 10, but the angle of deflection changes enough that the ball can still weakly take the 5 pin out, but not hard enough to get to the 7.
If you think about it you seldom see a 7-10 on a longer flat pattern because you cant create enough entry angle. I do think their has been a resurgence in the amount of 7-10s, probably due to several factors including strong asymmetrical cores that want to flip really hard coming off the end of the oil. Also, I think the higher viscosity oils tend to maintain a wet dry look even when they carry down a bit.